


say it like you mean it

by spaceburgers



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Canonical Character Death, Coming Out, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-05-26 16:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6247972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceburgers/pseuds/spaceburgers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Leo is a transfer student, Takumi is overly competitive, and they're doing Romeo and Juliet (but not as the titular roles).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. auditions

**Author's Note:**

> alternate fic title: #takumisdoinghisbest
> 
> this fic is many things at the same time: it's my love letter to takumi, who gets way more flak than he deserves; the self-indulgent wish fulfilment of my inner theatre nerd; and my attempt to contribute to this small but rapidly growing fandom
> 
> i adjusted the ages of some of the characters (for example, kaden is much older than most of the characters; hana is significantly older than sakura as well). also i haven't started on conquest yet so i fudged some the nohrian characters i'm so sorry
> 
> EDIT 03/16: title changed! now taken from say it, just say it by the mowgli's
> 
> this fic is so embarrassing but i don't care, i'm a nerd, ENJOY

There are _rules_ at their high school. Takumi knows this, because his siblings have presided over said rules for the past six years—Ryoma, who was the kind of popular that Takumi used to think only existed in movies, and then Hinoka who, despite not being the most book smart of the family, had singlehandedly led the women’s basketball team to a—quite literally—crushing victory just a year ago. Even Sakura, who isn’t even in high school yet, is already universally loved by anyone who has ever come within a five-foot radius of her like some Disney princess or other, and the point is that Takumi has a lot to live up to, and there are _rules_. Rules that Takumi is trying to uphold, because he has a 4.0 average and he’s good at sports and he volunteers regularly and he’s an active member of the drama department, and all is well.

There are rules. And then there is Leo.

Leo, who’s moved to the neighborhood with the rest of his (quite frankly) dysfunctional family all the way from _England_ , which apparently makes him all _cool_ and _dashing_ and _mysterious_ according to Takumi’s classmates, and that would be reason enough to make Takumi dislike him, except he realizes after a few weeks that a) Leo is in almost all his classes and b) Leo is _beating him_ in several of said classes, and that’s just not supposed to happen.

But the real kicker happens when Takumi turns up to audition for the drama club’s fall play—Romeo and Juliet, because creativity is, quite frankly, dead—and Leo is there too, and _that’s just not supposed to happen_.

“Hey,” Takumi says to him, the words leaving his mouth before he even has time to think of what he’s trying to say. They’re hovering awkwardly outside the entrance to the theatre, him and Leo and a bunch of other boys trying out for the various roles (although who are they kidding, every single person in this room really just wants to play Romeo), and the moment he speaks Leo just raises one perfect eyebrow at him, and Takumi is _pissed off_. “You sure you’re cut out for Shakespeare?” he continues. Leo snorts.

“I believe Shakespeare was a _British_ playwright,” he says in his stupid, posh accent.

Takumi opens his mouth, although he’s not sure what else he can possibly say other than _fuck you_ and _fuck off back to where you came from_ and _I fucking hate you already_ , but then the drama teacher Kaden pokes his head out from behind the door and grins.

“Sorry for the wait,” he says in his singsong voice. “You guys can head in now!”

He disappears back inside and the crowd of boys starts shuffling in, and Takumi closes his mouth, glaring at Leo which as much venom as he can muster.

“Break a leg,” he says instead. Leo smirks.

“Good luck,” he returns.

-

Callback results are out the next day. Takumi squints at the list, his books balanced against one arm, Oboro and Hinata milling around behind him. He’s down for Mercutio, he notes, and Romeo too, obviously, and—and Leo’s down for Romeo too.

“Fuck,” Takumi says, out loud.

“Indeed,” someone says from behind him.

He turns around, and of course, _of course_ , it’s Leo, standing just behind him, close enough that their shoulders are almost brushing. He’s looking at the list too, with just the slightest hint of distaste in the curve of his lips.

Leo turns to look at him, and their eyes lock.

“You,” Takumi says.

“Me,” Leo agrees easily. Takumi’s eyes narrow.

“Listen,” he says. “I’ve been in every single production ever since I was a freshman, okay? Even fucking _Urinetown_ in my sophomore year. So if you think you’re just going to _waltz in_ here and steal _my_ part then—”

“I’m sorry,” Leo cuts in. “I wasn’t aware that they’d already given the part of Romeo to you. There must be some misunderstanding involved,” he continues, all feigned innocence, “since they ended up holding auditions for the role anyway.”

“You son of a bitch,” Takumi snaps.

“Creative,” Leo returns smoothly.

There’s a very long moment where all they do is glare at each other, but then someone clears their throat loudly behind them— _Oboro_ , Takumi thinks, and sure enough, he turns around to see her rolling her eyes at him, and he has never been more relieved to see her glaring at him than in this exact moment.

“Let’s go to class,” Hinata chimes in from next to her, and Takumi nods, presses his books against his chest.

“Later,” he mutters to Leo, and then turns to go.

Oboro and Hinata are talking—something about their homework assignment, complaining about the essay they stayed up finishing last night, and Takumi can barely hear them over the way his heart’s still pounding in his ears. His fist is clenched at his side, and all he can think of as he makes his way down the hallway is how much he wants to rip that smirk right off Leo’s smarmy face, and—

“Takumi,” Hinata calls. “ _Takumi_.”

Hinata’s hand is on his shoulder, physically shaking him. Takumi startles, blinks, almost drops the books he’s holding.

“Sorry,” he says. “What did you say?”

Hinata and Oboro exchange looks.

“Why do you hate Leo so much?” Oboro says. Blunt as always. Takumi looks away.

“I don’t _hate_ him,” he hedges. Hinata coughs.

“Well, you kind of _act_ like you do,” Oboro fires back.

“Okay, _fine_ ,” Takumi snaps. “I can’t stand the sight of him, okay? But have you even _looked_ at him? Walking around like he owns the damn place even though he hasn’t even been here for a month, and he thinks he’s so smart, going on and on about _back in England_ , and why does he even need a hairband? He just looks fucking stupid, and—” Abruptly, Takumi realizes just how petty he sounds, and he stops mid-sentence. He looks away, feeling his cheeks starting to flush.

“I don’t need a legitimate reason to dislike him,” he tries again. “I just don’t like his face.”

Oboro and Hinata exchange looks again. Sometimes, Takumi thinks he needs to get new friends.

“Alright,” Oboro says at last. “Just—don’t let it control you.”

Takumi snorts. “Of course not,” he says, and that’s that.

-

Takumi has been acting for a very long time now. One of his fondest childhood memories is starring in some dumb elementary school play—truthfully, he doesn't even remember what it was anymore. That was before his parents died—he remembers seeing them in the audience, the way their faces glowed with pride, and even though he remembers almost nothing about the play he remembers, to this day, the way he’d felt on that stage: he’d felt tall and confident and _powerful_ , and it didn’t matter that Ryoma was the smart one and Hinoka was the sporty one and Sakura was the nice one, because there was something that only _he_ could do. In that moment, he’d felt _important._

Then his father died, and his mother followed soon after, and Takumi stopped acting. Ryoma tried to fill the shoes that had been left for him, barely two months out of college and now expected to be the head of the family. Takumi hated him for trying to be their dad. He hated Hinoka for not being enough like their mom. He hated Sakura for withdrawing into herself.

Mostly, he hated himself for being so powerless.

But life moved on. Ryoma took over the family business. Hinoka joined the basketball team. Sakura made friends.

Takumi started acting again.

So maybe he _is_ overreacting. Maybe it’s not that big a deal if Leo gets to be Romeo. Takumi knows, rationally, that it’s not the end of the world, that there are other great roles too, that there’s always the spring musical, that there are opportunities outside of the classroom, outside of high school—but Takumi has never been a very rational person.

He knows, rationally, that Leo isn’t a threat to him in any way at all. It doesn’t stop him from _feeling_ it anyway, though.

-

Callbacks are held after school on a dreary rainy day. Takumi wants nothing more than to go home and crawl under the covers, but instead he finds himself armed with steely determination and a battered copy of Romeo and Juliet as he sits in the front row of their theatre, staring up at Leo as he performs the famous monologue.

Kaden likes to hold callbacks workshop-style, getting all the actors into the same room to watch each other as opposed to just sending actors in one by one. Takumi knows how it goes by now—he always starts with monologues for each individual character, then they break up into pairs or groups to read actual scenes. It can stretch on for _hours_ , especially if you’re down for multiple roles, but Takumi never really minds. It’s always great watching his classmates perform, especially the ones he’s known since elementary or middle school.

And then there are the ones he _doesn’t_ know.

“But soft!” Leo cries, looking up at some imaginary window. His eyes are almost shining as he continues, “what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”

Takumi doesn’t want to admit it, but Leo is actually, genuinely very good—the way he moves, as if he _belongs_ on the stage. His delivery is—well, not flawless, but it’s _mesmerizing_ , really; he _is_ Romeo, in that moment. He takes what he's given, the careful syntax and the lyricism of the lines, and he makes it natural, convincing. He makes it _his_.

Takumi watches as Leo paces the stage. His grip on his book tightens.

A few other boys go on after Leo, but Takumi barely even notices. He watches, out of the corner of his eye, as Leo walks off the stage gracefully, returns to his seat all the way to the left of the theatre. He’s sitting next to Niles, Takumi notices, whom he really barely knows—they had one class together in their sophomore year and that was it—but it grates on his nerves anyway as he watches Niles lean over to whisper something into Leo’s ear that makes him grin.

He turns away, suddenly aware that he’s been staring like a creep. He makes himself look down at his book, rereading lines that he already knows by heart. _Two of the fairest stars in all of heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return_. It’s cheesy as fuck. He wants it desperately.

When it’s his turn to go on he walks onto the stage, slowly. He’s aware, dimly, of the pounding of his heart in his chest. It’s always like this, every single time—right before he goes on he’s always incredibly fucking nervous, but the moment he stands on stage, the blindingly bright lights shining right in his face, it melts away immediately.

He walks to the lip of the stage. He sees Leo watching him, his expression completely neutral.

He takes a deep breath, and he begins.

-

They split into their smaller roles afterwards, Takumi grouped together with the Mercutios and Leo, apparently, with the other potential Tybalts. It makes Takumi smile even in spite of himself, because it just fits, doesn’t it. Tybalt is a combative asshole with almost zero redeeming qualities. Leo is perfect for the role.

He gets to do the Queen Mab speech, and in all honesty it _is_ one of his favorite monologues of all time. He’s more relaxed when he does it, aware that Leo isn’t watching him anymore, and being Mercutio is just _fun_ , really. The original sixteenth century show-stealer. He really puts himself into the role, drags out as much swagger and cynicism as he can muster. Kaden actually giggles at one point, and it’s moments like these that really affirm why Takumi got into acting in the first place—that heady rush of energy that can’t be found anywhere else in the world. When he finishes there’s applause, and he grins, bright and easy, hopping off the stage still high on adrenaline.

They have a short break, so he wanders off to watch the Juliets audition—Hana’s on, and Takumi smiles while watching her in spite of himself. He’s known her for ages, since elementary school in fact, and they’ve starred in more productions together than Takumi can count. She’s amazing, one of the best actresses in the entire school without competition, and he claps when she’s done, not even caring if he’s being a nuisance. She catches his eye, beams, and Takumi gives her two thumbs up from where he’s sitting.

“Okay,” Kaden says, producing a microphone out of nowhere. It screeches painfully, and Takumi flinches as Kaden jerks the microphone away from his mouth. “Sorry!” he continues, not looking even the least bit sorry. “That’s it for the monologues. We’ll start with scene readings now—we’ll start with act three scene one.” He reaches into his shirt pocket, fishes out a slightly crumpled piece of paper. He squints at it, then reads, “For the first group can we have Laslow as Benvolio, and then Leo and Takumi as Tybalt and Mercutio—”

 _“What_ ,” Takumi says out loud before he can stop himself. Several heads turn in his direction, and he flushes, clicks his tongue and looks away.

“Does everyone have a copy of the script?” Kaden continues, unperturbed by the commotion. “There are extras over here if anyone needs one—”

The other boys get up, walk to the front of the stage—Laslow and Leo are chatting easily, and Takumi finds himself still glued to his seat, still caught in a daze.

Someone nudges him, and abruptly he snaps out of it, turns to his right: it’s Hana, glaring up at him with impressive ferocity considering the fact that she’s almost an entire foot shorter than him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thinks, _when did she even get there?_

“Hey,” she whispers. “Don’t mess this up.”

He blinks again, shakes himself.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry.”

He gets up too, brushes past her as he makes his way from his seat to the stage.

“Okay,” Kaden’s saying to the other boys assembled in front of him. “Can you guys start from the top of the scene, all the way till right before Romeo enters?”

“So I don’t get to kill Mercutio, then,” Leo mutters under his breath. Kaden shoots him a sharp look.

“No killing,” he says resolutely. Takumi snorts. Leo turns to him, mouth open, ready to fire back with another jibe, but then Kaden clears his throat pointedly.

“Places,” he says tersely, and the three of them scramble onto the stage.

“I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire: the day is hot, the Capulets abroad, and, if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl,” Laslow begins, gesticulating wildly with his hands. Takumi snorts, rolls his eyes as Laslow continues, “For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.”

“Thou art like one of those fellows that when he enters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword upon the table and says, ‘God send me no need of thee!’ and by the operation of the second cup draws it on the drawer, when indeed there is no need,” Takumi shoots back, elbowing Laslow with a grin. Laslow scoffs, crosses the stage and folds his arms.

“Am I like such a fellow?” he says with mock incredulity, and Takumi laughs.

“Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved.”

It goes on between the two of them at length, Takumi teasing and poking fun at Laslow in big, swooping speeches. As with the monologue he tries to put himself in it as best as he can, making use of the whole length of the stage, circling Laslow at times as he speaks, and it’s good. This back-and-forth banter is what they’re both good at.

And then Tybalt enters.

“By my head, here come the Capulets,” Laslow calls.

“By my heel, I care not,” Takumi mutters, turning away abruptly. He closes off his posture immediately—where it was all wide gestures and flailing limbs previously, he puts his feet together now, crosses his arms, angles his body away from where Leo enters from stage left.

“Follow me close, for I will speak to them,” Leo says, gesturing to where minor characters are supposed to follow his entrance. He turns to Laslow and Takumi, raises his eyebrows. “Gentlemen, good e’en,” he says, his voice practically dripping with condescension. “A word with one of you.”

“And but one word with one of us?” Takumi retorts. He turns to Leo abruptly, tilts his head in his direction. “Couple it with something. Make it a word and a blow.”

“You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you will give me occasion,” Leo says, practically spitting it out from between gritted teeth.

“Could you not take some occasion without giving?” Takumi fires back mockingly, and he watches as Leo’s eyes narrow.

“Mercutio, thou consort’st with Romeo—”

“Consort!” Takumi scoffs. He turns away, faces the audience, rolls his eyes as dramatically as possible. “What, dost thou make us minstrels? An thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords: here’s my fiddlestick; here’s that shall make you dance. ‘Zounds,” he says, turning back to Leo, walking over and closing the distance between them. “ _Consort!_ ” he spits out, glaring up at Leo from up close—if Leo’s thrown at all by Takumi’s sudden proximity he doesn’t show it at all, glares back down at Takumi instead, meeting his gaze evenly.

There’s electricity crackling beneath his skin. Laslow says his line, gets between the both of them and pushes Takumi away, but his gaze remains fixed on Leo’s the whole time—and then Romeo enters the scene and Tybalt finally tears his eyes away. Takumi blinks, turns away, spits, and then crosses to the other side of the stage.

“Men’s eyes were made to look, and let them gaze,” he mutters. “I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I.”

The scene lingers for a moment longer—Takumi and Leo on opposite ends of the stage, Laslow hovering anxiously in between them.

“Thank you,” Kaden says at last, and Takumi immediately relaxes, sighs in relief. “Thank you, boys—okay, can we do the same scene with Silas as Benvolio, Tsubaki as Mercutio, and—”

“Nice one,” Laslow whispers, lightly slapping Takumi on the back as they walk off the stage. Takumi turns to him, grins.

“Not too shabby yourself, Laslow,” he says.

“Thanks!” Laslow beams back at him. “Leo was great too, huh?”

Takumi has to physically restrain himself from rolling his eyes.

“Yeah,” he says instead, as noncommittally as he can muster; but then Leo shoves at him, pushing him aside as he makes his way back to his seat.

“Hey, what’s your problem—” he begins, but then he remembers himself, stops. He takes a deep breath, turns away as he heads back to his seat. _This isn’t the first time you’ve dealt with a shitty actor_ , he reminds himself. _It’s okay. Kaden never casts actors who won’t play nice. You know this, and Leo doesn’t. You’ll get the role, and he won’t_.

He slides back into his seat, still lost in thought; Hana’s still in the seat next to his, and she elbows him gently when he passes.

“Good job!” she whispers, and Takumi shakes himself, smiles at her.

“Thanks,” he mutters.

Leo’s probably whispering to Niles at the back of the theatre, too. The thought of it grates on Takumi’s nerves more than it should. He tries not to think about it.

-

Takumi’s not nervous about casting results. He’s not. He’s a veteran. He’s _seasoned_.

“You’re nervous,” Hinata proclaims. Takumi scowls and bats his hand away.

“ _I’m_ _not_ ,” he says again, painfully aware of just how incensed he sounds right now. “I’m not,” he tries again, calmer this time. Hinata puts a hand on Takumi’s shoulder.

“My friend,” he says. “There is nothing wrong with a little case of nerves.”

Takumi sighs and puts his head in his hands.

“I just,” he says, helplessly. “It’s my last fall play _ever_ , and I want to get it right. You know?”

“Yeah,” Hinata says, in a tone of voice that implies he has no idea at all. Takumi lifts his head, scowls.

“You are the worst best friend ever,” he proclaims.

“Yeah,” Hinata repeats in the exact same tone of voice. Takumi groans, and Hinata bursts into laughter.

“You know I kid,” he says, shifting so his shoulder bumps against Takumi’s. “Seriously, you’ll be fine! Kaden loves you. Hell, the entire drama department’s in love with you, probably.”

Takumi snorts. “You exaggerate.”

“You’ll never know,” Hinata responds, solemn. Takumi rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling.

“Thanks, Hinata,” he says.

Casting results are supposed to go up at 4pm. It is currently 3:55pm, and Takumi _might_ be losing his shit. Just slightly. Just a little bit.

He’ll probably never say it out loud, but he’s incredibly thankful for Hinata and Oboro. Over the years it’s become a _thing_ for them to wait with Takumi in school for casting results—today Takumi and Hinata are in the library studying for an upcoming quiz (or at least they’re supposed to be, but it’s mostly just been Takumi staring blankly at an open textbook). Oboro has to help her parents man the family clothing store so she can’t join them; she’s been texting him for the past half an hour instead, small snippets of what’s happening on her end (“ _some guy just walked in wearing denim on denim on denim, please save me_ ”) and as much as Takumi appreciates the effort he just can’t bring himself to reply right now.

He’s staring at his watch, watching the second hand tick by, torturously slow. Distantly, he wonders what the other drama kids are doing now. Hana’s probably hanging out at the bleachers, maybe with Tsubaki. Laslow and Odin, Takumi knows, are definitely at home, because that’s what they do every single year: hide at home under the covers and wait for someone to text them to tell them the good (or bad) news.

( _Wonder what Leo’s doing_ , he thinks, and then halts that train of thought immediately.)

3:56.

“I’m going to head downstairs now,” Takumi says.

“Okay,” Hinata says. He turns to look at him, shutting the notebook he’s been taking notes (doodling) in. “Do you want me to come with?”

Takumi considers for a moment, but eventually shakes his head.

“It’s cool,” he says. He grins, probably far too bright to mask the impending doom that’s playing out in his head. “I’ll be right back.”

Hinata nods, then claps his hand on Takumi’s shoulder.

“Good luck,” he says. Takumi sucks in a breath.

“Thank you,” he says, quietly, and then gets up to leave.

On his way down he shoots Oboro a quick text. _Sorry for ignoring your texts_ , he writes.

 _It’s fine_ , she replies instantly. _I know how you get._

Takumi barely has a moment to be offended by her words before his phone buzzes with another text from her.

 _You’ll be fine_ , it says, simply. Takumi shoves his phone back into his pocket.

In all honesty, the nicer his friends are to him the more awkward he gets. He doesn’t know how to respond to their kindness and their generosity—truthfully, he doesn’t know if he deserves it at all. All he can is smile and say _thank you_ , but it always feels painfully inadequate for the sheer gratitude that he feels: the fact Oboro and Hinata have stuck by his side for this long, for absolutely no personal gain or reason other than pure, unadulterated _friendship_.

3:58.

When he reaches the hallway where the results are going to be posted there are already people hovering around the notice board. He spots Hana, and he makes his way over to her.

“Hey,” he says. Hana turns to him, surprised, then relaxes when she sees who it is.

“Are you nervous?” she asks, which is kind of an irrelevant question, all things considered. Takumi snorts.

“Of course not,” he says, and he’s not even sure if he’s being sarcastic or not, which is bad, because the moment sarcasm ceases to be one of Takumi’s weapons he knows he’s fucked.

3:59.

Kaden is nowhere in sight, but Keaton is marching towards them holding a sheet of paper and wearing a decidedly grumpy expression.

“Kaden’s sick,” he says to the gathered crowd, “so I’m doing him a _favor_.”

And then he unceremoniously tacks the piece of paper onto the notice board.

The crowd surges forward in an instant, and Takumi gets shoved to the back. He tiptoes, craning to read what’s on the sheet. At the front of the crowd, Hana gasps, and Tsubaki puts his arm around her shoulder. When she turns around Takumi catches her eye.

 _Juliet?_ he mouths.

Hana’s face is glowing, which is answer enough—but then her expression goes blank, and Takumi’s heart sinks.

He pushes his way to the front, not really caring about the dirty looks he’s getting from the people around him, and—

 _Romeo: Laslow_ , it reads.

Suddenly it feels like the wind’s been knocked out of him.

His eyes move a few lines down.

 _Mercutio: Takumi_.

And then even further down.

 _Tybalt: Leo_.

Takumi can’t breathe. There’s a weight in the pit of his stomach. He can’t move.

He turns around. Hana is getting congratulated by the other cast members. Peri’s on the phone with Laslow, practically shouting into it— _yes_ , she’s saying, _yes you did get cast as Romeo, you idiot_ , and Takumi does what he does best: he flees.

His phone’s ringing—Oboro, probably, calling to ask about the casting results. Takumi feels sick.

He needs to go back to the library. His bag’s still there, but so is Hinata, waiting.

He doesn’t want to talk to anyone right know.

Hinata will say, _it doesn’t matter. There’s still the spring musical!_

Oboro will say, _you not getting cast as Romeo doesn’t say anything at all about you or your acting ability._

Hana will say, _Mercutio’s a great role! You shouldn’t take it personally._

But it’s hard _not_ to take it personally, because Takumi is a fucking idiot who takes _everything_ personally, like it’s someone telling him _you just weren’t good enough, you’ll never be good enough_ , and it’s so stupid, he’s an actor, he should be used to rejection by now ( _and it wasn’t even a flat-out rejection_ , some part of his brain whispers, _you still got a great role anyway_ ) but that doesn’t stop it from hurting anyway.

He ends up sitting at some random staircase, leaning against the wall as he stares down at his feet, feeling sorry for himself. Hinata’s probably figured out that it didn’t go well by now, he thinks. It says a lot about their friendship that Hinata hasn’t tried to contact him yet, knows that what Takumi needs most right now is to be left alone.

“Hey,” someone calls, interrupting his thoughts. It’s not a voice he recognizes.

He looks up, and Leo is there.

“Come to gloat?” Takumi mutters. He’s aware of how childish he sounds, but he doesn’t care. He curls in on himself, doesn’t want to look at Leo right now.

“If you must know,” Leo says, “I’m not exactly ecstatic right now either.”

Takumi blinks. Right, he’d almost forgotten that Leo got cast as Tybalt, who has even fewer lines than Mercutio—Takumi thinks about Leo’s Romeo audition, about the look on his face when he’d performed the monologue, and guilt curls in the pit of his stomach. Leo deserves the role of Romeo just as much as anyone else, and had to settle for less.

He looks up; Leo’s still there, his expression painfully blank.

“I didn’t see you, earlier,” Takumi says instead, stupidly. Leo snorts.

“I just didn’t feel like crowding in front of the cast list with everybody else present,” he responds smoothly.

 _This is really fucking strange_ , Takumi thinks.

“What are you here for, then, if not to gloat?” Takumi says.

Leo gives him a strange look. He shrugs, lifts a bony shoulder almost elegantly.

“You look like your dog just died,” he says. “I felt compelled to say something.”

Takumi looks away. “Don’t bother,” he mutters. “I’m fine.”

There’s silence for a long time. For a moment Takumi thinks Leo’s left, but when he looks up he’s still standing there.

“Well,” he says at last. “I’ll see you at rehearsals I suppose.”

“Yeah,” Takumi says. He almost laughs, because every time he’s imagined this scene being played out in his head it’s always been with extreme malice—Takumi saying it condescendingly, or Leo being the one to really rub it in. He never considered the possibility that they’d end up in the same boat, and now that they’re both here he just feels entirely wrong-footed. “See you.”

Leo nods, and then he leaves, hiking his backpack over his shoulder as he goes.

Takumi stays there for a while more, his head swimming. Eventually he shakes himself, stands up, dusts his pants off, then heads back up the stairs towards the library.


	2. rehearsals, part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter took so long, a lot of stuff has been happening (read: college admissions decisions, and yes i'm very happy thank you for asking) but here it is finally!

“So yeah,” Takumi says. “Maybe I’m pissed off. But the thing is I know I don’t even have the _right_ to be pissed off, because—that’s the whole fucking reason why Kaden makes everyone watch callbacks, you know? So when some asshole, such as me, doesn’t get the role they want, they’re forced to concede, like, yeah I watched the audition and I know why Kaden chose him instead of me, which makes sense, but it’s also bullshit.”

“Takumi,” Oboro says. “Shut the fuck up.”

“No, please keep talking,” Hinata interjects. Oboro doesn’t even look at him, just continues funneling popcorn into her mouth as on-screen some guy wearing a truly hideous sweater continues debating the merits of royal blue versus whatever the fuck other shade of blue that honestly looks exactly the same, in all honesty Takumi’s brain stopped functioning about an hour ago.

Friday nights are movie nights for the three of them; it’s been a tradition since middle school when they first found out that they all have pretty similar tastes in movies, except over the years it’s evolved into a pissing contest called Who Can Make The Other Two Losers Want To Gouge Their Eyes Out The Fastest, a contest that Oboro is winning by a large, _large_ margin. Today she’s forcing Takumi and Hinata to watch reruns of Project Runway, which shouldn’t even count because it’s not even a movie, but Oboro didn’t care and booted up episode one anyway, and the moment it started playing Takumi was already trying to figure out the exact logistics of using popcorn as a projectile weapon, although eventually his self-preservation instincts re: Oboro’s fury won out.

Hence the talking.

“The thing is,” he continues, as loudly as possible, “Mercutio is an amazing role. He gets some of the best monologues in the entire play. He’s also not a complete fucking idiot like Romeo is, and logically I know I shouldn’t be upset—” Oboro reaches for the remote and cranks the volume all the way up. Takumi takes a brief moment to be thankful that Ryoma and Hinoka aren’t home. Sakura is, but she’s probably used to their bullshit by now. He clears his throat. “— _I said, I shouldn’t be upset,_ but I am, and instead of being nice to me my friends are torturing me with a show that is the literal depiction of the worst of humanity—“

“Project Runway is a modern-day masterpiece,” Oboro pronounces.

“My _face_ is a modern-day masterpiece,” Takumi mutters.

“Hey, you actually got him to shut up about Romeo and Juliet!” Hinata pipes up. Takumi gives Hinata his best betrayed look, places one hand on his chest. Hinata ignores him.

“ _Et tu_ , Hinata?” he says.

“Can you actually go five minutes without mentioning or quoting Shakespeare?” Oboro says.

“No,” Takumi says. “I am physically unable to do so. You should know this by now.”

“Why don’t you guys ever let me talk about sports as much as Takumi talks about his nerdy stuff?” Hinata complains.

“ _Nerdy stuff—_ ”

“Because you’re not a self-absorbed asshole,” Oboro informs him. Hinata nods sagely.

“That makes sense.”

“ _You guys…”_

Truthfully, all this _is_ making Takumi feel better: eating popcorn, listening to the easy banter between Oboro and Hinata, watching reruns of a ridiculous TV show with zero intellectual merit. It’s stupid and brainless and Takumi wouldn’t have it any other way. Oboro and Hinata have never treated him with kid gloves; have never, ever looked at him with anything even remotely approaching pity. They carry on as normal instead, teasing Takumi mercilessly in between shouting at the TV screen whenever someone does something stupid, and for the first time in a while, Takumi feels completely at ease.

(It’s a distraction, though—Takumi knows this, and Oboro and Hinata know it too. It’s a distraction, because first rehearsals are tomorrow, and Takumi has been deliberately avoiding that topic for as long as possible. Although he knows he’ll have to face up to it soon. Just—not yet.)

They’re in the middle of a heated discussion about whether royal-blue-slash-some-other-fucking-shade-of-blue guy should be eliminated or not when Sakura pokes her head round the door shyly.

“Um,” she says, her voice wavering slightly. “A-are you guys staying for dinner?”

“We are,” Oboro says gently, in a tone of voice she would probably rather die than use around either Takumi or Hinata. It’s no secret that she has a soft spot for Sakura (then again, who doesn’t?), which is both sweet and kind of terrifying at the same time. “We’re thinking of getting pizza. Do you want anything?

She shakes her head, cheeks flushing. “Anything’s fine,” she says, and then disappears back behind the door. There’s a moment of silence, then she reappears, looking frazzled. “Thank you,” she adds hastily, and then she’s gone, shutting the door behind her as she goes.

“Stop scaring Sakura,” Oboro says, scowling, swatting Hinata on the back.

“Hey!” he yelps. “ _You’re_ the scary one around here.”

“I’m only scary around idiots like you,” she returns. “Sakura loves me.”

Actually, Sakura is terrified of the both of them for entirely different reasons, but Takumi wisely chooses not to mention that particular fact.

“So anyway,” Takumi says, before their argument can escalate any further. “The thing about Mercutio—”

Oboro and Hinata groan at the same time, and then the conversation quickly degenerates back into intense Project Runway-related debates.

When he’s sure nobody’s looking at him, Takumi lets himself smile.

-

Rehearsals go well after that. Mostly because Takumi isn’t in any of them.

Takumi turns up for the very first rehearsal, which turns out to be bullshit (namely Kaden telling them about his expectations, which would be important if not for the fact that Takumi has heard him deliver the exact same speech, almost word-for-word, every year for the past four years). After that they break into individual scenes, with only the actors involved having to turn up for rehearsals, and they’re starting with act one scene one, which is—yeah, okay, understandable, but almost everyone is in it _except_ Mercutio. Which is bullshit, really.

Then again, Juliet isn’t in it either.

“Help me practice,” Hana says to him one day, accosting him in the hallway; she’s smiling, holding two copies of the script in her hands—one of them extensively highlighted and annotated and the other one blank—and it’s kindness, Takumi reminds himself. Kindness, but not pity. He refuses to be pitied.

“You know,” he tells her, “making me read Romeo’s lines for you isn’t really making me feel better.”

She flushes, dark pink rising to her cheeks. She really is very pretty, Takumi suddenly realizes, standing there wearing a breezy pink dress with a denim jacket thrown over it, but he doesn’t feel attracted to her at all. They’ve known each other for far too long for that, and it’s a comforting thought, somehow.

“I wasn’t,” she says fiercely, “trying to comfort you. I really do need help.”

“Bullshit,” Takumi says. “You haven’t needed help for anything since you were six years old, probably.” He’s smiling, though, and Hana visibly relaxes.

“The gym?” she says. Takumi nods.

She hands the blank copy of the script over, even though he really doesn’t need it, has had a battered copy of Romeo and Juliet in his backpack since the day of auditions, but he takes it anyway.

“See you,” she says, and turns to go. Takumi looks down at the script in his hands.

“Wait,” he says.

She pauses, turns around, gives him a questioning look.

“I’m okay,” he says. “Really.”

Her gaze softens. She walks back over to him, hugs him even though she’s an entire head shorter than he is.

“I know,” she says. “I wasn’t trying to comfort you.”

It’s kindness, Takumi reminds himself. Kindness, and not pity.

“I have to go,” she says at last, stepping away. She tucks her hair behind her ear, smiles brightly. “I’ll see you after class?”

“Yeah,” he says. “See you.”

 _Kindness_ , he thinks. _Not pity._

_-_

Hana is just being nice, Takumi tells himself. It doesn’t stop him from feeling like there’s something unpleasant sitting at the bottom of his stomach, though.

Still, he dutifully turns up to help her run lines—the gym is a popular after-school hangout spot when some sports team isn’t using it for practice, and by the time he turns up there are already groups of people scattered across the bleachers, chatting or studying or trying to be clandestine about the fact that they’re making out, which isn’t really working at all, in Takumi’s humble opinion. He spots Hana easily, perched near the top, sitting with his elbows pressed against her knees as she reads the script, mouthing the words as she goes. Takumi walks up to her, notices the way her brow is furrowed in concentration. She doesn’t even notice him, and he stands there awkwardly for a few moments, watching her read, before she looks up.

“Oh!” She blinks, embarrassed. “Sorry—how long have you been standing there?”

“All day,” he says. She scowls, swats at his leg a lot harder than intended—or at least, Takumi hopes she didn’t mean to hit him that hard, because _that actually hurt_.

He sits down next to her, shrugging his backpack off his shoulders and setting it on the ground.

“What scene were you thinking of today?” he says, mostly to ignore the throbbing pain in his calf from where she’d hit him. Briefly, Takumi wonders if theatre was a mistake and she should’ve founded their high school’s first women’s boxing team instead.

“Well, I was thinking the ball,” she says, “but that only happens in scene five, so…”

“I don’t mind,” Takumi says, leaning back against the gym wall.

“…well, Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech comes before that,” Hana says at last.

Takumi starts, turns to look at her. She’s glaring defiantly back at him, eyebrows drawn together, as if she’s already expecting Takumi to argue. Which he was fully intending to do anyway. He clicks his tongue, slouches back against the wall.

“It’s fine,” he mutters. “I don’t need help.”

“Don’t be stupid, everyone needs help—”

“I thought you weren’t trying to comfort me,” Takumi snaps.

Hana immediately shuts her mouth.

“Listen, I’m not some—fragile little kid, okay? I’ve been turned down for roles before, I don’t know why everyone’s been treating me like I’m going to _burst into tears_ halfway through rehearsals or something—”

“That’s not—”

“Don’t _deny_ it, Hana. The only thing I hate more than being pitied is being lied to.”

Hana’s rendered speechless again. She opens her mouth, then shuts it.

“I’m sorry,” she says at last, her voice very quiet. Takumi relaxes, all the fight suddenly drained out of him.

“I’m sorry too,” he says. “For yelling,” he adds. “Not for being pissed off.”

Hana huffs. “The day you apologize for getting mad is the day pigs fly.”

“Excuse me,” Takumi says. “Pigs flying are way more likely to happen.”

Hana grins, punches him lightly on the arm, and Takumi lets himself smile back too.

“I wonder how rehearsals are going,” he says.

“I hope Kaden’s regretting casting Laslow as Romeo, for one,” she mutters darkly.

“He’s not so bad,” Takumi says, laughing. Hana’s expression grows even darker.

“Takumi,” she says. “I hope you’re not forgetting the great debacle of Into the Woods.”

Said debacle involving Hana being cast as Cinderella and Laslow being cast as Cinderella’s Prince in last year’s spring musical. Which eventually culminated in Laslow being punched in the face exactly one week before opening night and requiring a truly frightening amount of concealer to cover the bruise on his cheek that by then was turning a sickly yellowish-green.

“To be fair, _you_ punched him,” Takumi says, grinning.

“ _To be fair_ ,” Hana returns, imitating Takumi’s voice, “he was being a misogynistic ass.”

“Maybe Kaden’s trying to set the two of you up,” Takumi suggests, if only to see the absolutely horrified look on Hana’s place.

“God, you’re such an asshole,” she says. She tries to hit him, but he ducks away in time. “Who’s to say Kaden isn’t trying to set _you_ and Leo up, huh?”

Takumi chokes.

“Fuck,” he says. “Please, no.”

First of all, he hates Leo’s guts on principle. That one semi-civil encounter on the day of callback results be damned.

Second of all, he isn’t—he doesn’t even—

“Then don’t make fun of me and Laslow,” she says crossly. Takumi shakes himself, grins at her, and if it’s a little bit too bright, a little bit too easy, she doesn’t say anything about it all.

“Deal,” he says, “if you don’t mention Leo ever again in front of me.”

Hana’s expression shifts, suddenly. She scoots closer to him, rests her chin on her hands.

“You know,” she says, “Leo’s not _that_ bad.” Takumi’s stomach lurches. He turns away.

“How would you even know?”

“I’ve actually _talked_ to him, you know. Civil conversation. You should try it sometime.”

Takumi makes a vague noise of disagreement, still refusing to look at Hana. She sidles up to him; Takumi feels her shoulder brush against his arm.

“I’m going to tell you something you don’t want to hear,” she says.

“If you know I don’t want to hear it, why say it anyway?” he muses.

Hana ignores him. “I think you and Leo could be really good friends,” she says instead.

Takumi pulls a face.

“You’re right. I _don’t_ want to hear it.”

“Takumi—”

“No, listen, okay? I know you mean well, but honestly—”

“ _Why are you being so stubborn?_ ”

The actual answer is: _because of my dumb pride, because part of me is so insecure that I just immediately latch onto the first possible threat that appears even if it’s not actually much of a threat at all, because deep down inside I’m afraid of everything_ —

What actually comes out of his stupid mouth is:

“Stop trying to fucking _coddle_ me, Hana.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Her expression shutters immediately. She gets up, picks her backpack off the bleachers.

“Right,” she says. Her voice is ice cold. “I think we’re done for the day.”

He should apologize. Instead he just watches her go, listens to the rhythmic _click-click-click_ of her shoes as she gracefully descends the stairs.

God, he’s so fucking stupid.

-

Hana eventually forgives him, because she always does, and because she’s far too nice for an asshole like Takumi. She corners him in the hallway again two days later, says sorry completely genuinely, and Takumi just gives a shitty excuse for an apology while feeling like a complete jackass.

Still, though, it’s going to be a _long_ time before they actually get to the point where Takumi finally becomes relevant. He keeps himself busy catching up with his homework because he knows by the time they hit tech rehearsals he’s going to be falling asleep in the middle of AP English no matter how hard he tries—he does his homework in the library with Hinata and Oboro, feels a spike of guilt whenever he passes Hana in the hallway, resolutely does not look at Leo when they have classes together (which is harder than expected, because he’s always fucking _there_ , talking to their teachers, answering questions, generally being a smarmy fucking asshole), tries to spend as much time with his family as possible. He talks to Hinoka on Skype, and she shows him her progress on decorating her dorm room, lets him say hi to her roommate, tells him about all the people she’s meeting and the classes she’s taking. He misses her like crazy, but he doesn’t say so; he tells her about their fall play instead, complains about Kaden’s too-fucking-cheerful nature, relays stories about his classmates that he knows will make her smile.

“Do you miss high school?” he says, tentatively. Hinoka’s silent for a moment, contemplating. Takumi watches the way her forehead scrunches as it always does when she’s thinking hard about something, her face pixelated and blurry on her shitty laptop webcam.

“I definitely don’t miss the classes,” she says at last. “I miss the people, though. I miss walking around campus and seeing familiar faces everywhere. I miss my friends.” Hinoka looks down, her eyes flickering away to something Takumi can’t see. “I guess I’m just homesick. Maybe as time goes on I’ll feel better.” She shrugs, smiles. She says _maybe_ , but something about the way she says it exudes confidence, like she knows that within a month or two she’ll have her own circle of friends, thick as thieves; like she knows for a fact that she’s going to fit in, ace that class, join that club. Takumi admires and envies her self-assurance at the same time. He wonders what it’s like to not be completely fucking terrified all the time. He wouldn’t know.

“Well, I gotta go,” she says. “Classes. You know how it goes.”

He nods.

“Skype again when Sakura and Ryoma are home,” he tells her. Her gaze softens.

“Okay,” she says, quietly. “Tell them I miss them, will you?”

Takumi exhales.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. I’ll do that.”

-

He doesn’t tell them. He thinks about it all throughout dinner, but he can’t seem to get the words out of his mouth. It’s not envy, he thinks, except it totally is. He’s still thinking about the curve of Hinoka’s smile, certain and confident; thinking about the life she’s building for herself all the way on the other side of the country. He’s thinking about it as he makes dinner, thinks about it as he shoves rice down his throat without really tasting it.

Their dining room table is huge. It sits a table of eight easily. Before, their mom and dad used to sit across each other in the middle of the table, flanked by the four of them on each side. Ryoma would talk about his classes. Hinoka would tell some funny story about something that happened that day. Sakura would giggle at all the right places, shyly offering her own little elementary school anecdotes. Takumi would join in too, complaining loudly about this teacher or that class, joking easily with Hinoka, letting his mother scold him for not eating enough vegetables as she piled them onto his plate—

Now he picks at his greens listlessly as they eat in silence, Takumi sitting across Sakura and Ryoma, resolutely not thinking about the empty seat where Hinoka should be, where their parents should be, and god, it’s been years but it never really hurts any less, does it?

“Today Hayato gave me a souvenir from France,” Sakura says, tentatively breaking the silence. Takumi watches as she crosses and uncrosses her chopsticks, a nervous tic she’s always had. “He went there with his family over the summer. He got me a postcard.”

“That’s nice,” Ryoma says evenly. “Do you know which parts of France he visited?”

Ryoma treats Sakura like a kid. Ryoma treats them all like kids. Takumi hates it. He hates it so much.

“Just Paris,” Sakura answers, and then starts talking about all the things she’s heard from Hayato—the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, _he even saw the Mona Lisa up close, isn’t that incredible_ and Ryoma nods the whole time, humming thoughtfully at all the right places.

Takumi finishes his meal in silence. He eats his greens, and does not think about his mother.

-

Finally, fucking _finally_ , Hana corners him one day before class and tells him that he’s needed for rehearsals. Scene four is a short scene, so Kaden’s called the actors involved in scene five along too, which _obviously_ includes Leo because if there’s one thing Takumi’s good at it’s having the absolute worst luck in the world, but it’s fine, he’s a professional. He’s totally professional. He’s completely fucking professional, which is why ten minutes into rehearsals they’re already engaged in a shouting match with his hand fisted in Leo’s sweater and Leo glaring back down at him looking like he’s ready to kill.

“You don’t know jack shit about me,” Takumi’s saying, so angry he’s practically seething. Leo smiles joylessly. His eyes are very dark. He’s not even sure how it started anymore—who said what first, and who said something else in response. All he remembers is Leo saying _you haven’t got any parents, have you? Is that why you’re trying so hard to compensate_ and Takumi’s vision went red and before he knew it he had his fist in Leo’s sweater, chest heaving and knuckles going white.

“You’re more transparent than you think you are,” Leo says levelly, even though Takumi’s hands are fisted in his sweater, fingers closing around expensive wool, knuckles way too close to Leo’s throat.

“Yeah?” Takumi bares his teeth. He’s aware, dimly, of Hana trying to approach him, being stopped by Tsubaki. He puts a hand on her shoulder, steadying, but she shrugs it off, her eyes flashing. “At least I’m not an asshole who thinks he’s better than everyone else.”

“Don’t you?” Leo says quietly.

Takumi drags him forward—Leo’s taller than him, but he’s so thin, all skin and bones. _I could hit him right now_ , Takumi thinks, suddenly. _I could put my fist in his face if I wanted to._

The realization makes him pull back, blinking. Which is why he doesn’t expect it at all when Leo punches him right across the jaw.

He reacts instinctively, his fist connecting with Leo’s cheek, and Leo spits out _fuck you_ and Takumi says _you fucking wish_ , and then suddenly Kaden’s there, physically pulling them apart.

“Both of you,” he hisses. He looks _livid_. Takumi’s never seen him this angry before. “Get out.”

“But—” Takumi begins. Kaden shoots him a look.

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” he says. “Leave now, and don’t bother coming back until you’ve learnt to stop acting like children.”

Takumi doesn't know what to say. He’s never seen Kaden look so serious in his entire life. Wordlessly, he crosses over to the back of the room, picks up his backpack, exits the room with Leo trailing behind him. His jaw hurts, but he’s pretty sure nothing’s broken. He looks down at his hands—his knuckles are going to bruise later, he knows.

The door shuts behind the both of them, and Leo says, “I hope you’re happy.”

Takumi whirls around to look at him—Leo’s not looking at him, his posture completely different. He looks like all the fight’s left him all of a sudden.

“Excuse me?” Takumi says. “ _You’re_ the one who hit me.”

“You’re the one who insulted my family first,” Leo says, but he sounds tired, not at all like he’s trying to start an argument.

“I—” Takumi says, and then stops, because the words _I hope the rest of your shitty family isn’t as fucked up as you are_ suddenly come back to him like a slap across the face. He looks away, because if anybody had said those words to him he wouldn’t even have hesitated before decking the guy.

Leo’s right. Takumi doesn’t know him at all.

“I’m sorry,” he says shortly.

Leo snorts. “No, you’re not,” he says. Takumi clenches his fists.

“Listen, I’m _trying_ to be nice, okay?”

“I don’t know why you even bother,” Leo says. “I’m not interested in being your _friend_.”

He hitches his backpack onto his shoulder, turns away.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Leo says.

“Tomorrow?” Takumi yes.

“Yes,” Leo says slowly. “For rehearsals?”

Takumi looks at him.

“Kaden isn’t going to let us back in, you know that, right?”

 _That_ finally gets Leo’s attention. He turns to Takumi, his brow furrowed.

“What?”

“You heard him,” Takumi says. “ _Don’t come back until you learn to stop acting like children_.”

“But surely, he doesn’t—”

“Oh yeah, he _does_ ,” Takumi says. “You don’t know Kaden, man. He means business.”

Leo is silent. Takumi would normally get some satisfaction from finally rendering Leo speechless, but this time he just feels exhausted.

“So—what? We need to convince Kaden that we’re all— _chummy_ all of a sudden?”

Takumi doesn’t say anything, which is answer enough.

“So what do you suppose we do?” Leo says at last. Takumi looks down at his knuckles, where bruises are already starting to form. Ryoma’s going to give him hell if he finds out Takumi’s been fighting again. He doesn’t know which is worse: the lecture he’s going to give, or the disappointed look on his face that Takumi’s all too familiar with by now.

“I don’t know,” Takumi says. Leo makes a frustrated noise.

“ _Come on_ ,” he says. “That’s not an answer—”

“How am I supposed to know?” Takumi shouts, and then remembers himself. He flushes, shame rising high on his cheeks. He turns away. He can still hear the sounds of rehearsals going on behind the door.

“Look,” he says, “I—I’ll try and figure something out, okay?”

“Fine,” Leo says, his voice clipped. “I’ll think of something as well.”

There’s an awkward moment where the two of them just sort of—stand there in silence. Neither of them moves. Takumi wonders if Leo’s cheek is hurting as much as Takumi’s jaw does. He knows that back home Sakura’s going to help him ice it, that the moment he texts Oboro and Hinata about what happened they’re going to come over with pizza and the DVD for some shitty low-budget comedy movie. He wonders, abruptly, who Leo goes to at times like these.

“Well,” he says at last. “I’m just gonna—go.”

He sees Leo nod in his peripheral vision. He’s not looking at Takumi at all when he finally turns to go.


	3. intermission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello thank you everyone for your patience and your comments!! you guys have been so incredibly supportive and your comments really motivate me to keep on writing
> 
> in other news, you might have noticed that the chapter count has increased from 5 to 6... yeah... this fic is rapidly getting away from me help

Sakura says, “Did you get into a fight again?”

The words are accusing, but her tone is gentle as always as she presses antiseptic-soaked cotton against Takumi’s knuckles. He hisses, looks away.

“It wasn’t really a fight,” he mutters.

Sakura doesn’t say anything in response, just continues cleaning up his bruised knuckles. It’s why she’s his favorite sibling – because she doesn’t ask questions, just takes him for who he is. This time, though, it only makes him feel guilty, bile rising bitter in the back of his throat.

“I got kicked out of rehearsals,” he says at last. Sakura stops.

“What for?” she asks, her voice very quiet. Takumi still can’t look at her, just fixes his eyes on where her tiny hands are pressed over his larger ones.

“For fighting,” he says.

Takumi can’t see her, but he can practically picture what kind of face she must be making right now – her lips thinned, her brow furrowed.

“He was talking shit,” he mutters, a sullen defense, “about mom and dad.”

Sakura is silent for a long moment, and Takumi resolutely _does not look at her_.

“It still hurts, doesn’t it?” she says finally.

Takumi looks up. She’s smiling, the saddest smile he’s ever seen.

“Yeah,” he chokes out. His voice breaks, and it would be completely embarrassing if not for the fact that it’s Sakura. Sakura, who sets the cotton down, hugs him, wraps her arms around Takumi’s middle.

“I won’t tell Ryoma,” she whispers.

“Thank you,” he says, and closes his eyes.

-

The next day he corners Kaden in the hallway.

“Kaden, please—”

“No,” Kaden says.

“But—” Takumi says.

“I’m sorry, Takumi. Rules are rules.”

So that’s that.

He tries to talk to Hana, but she’s quite obviously mad at him – not the usual kind of anger where she forgives him after a day or two. She _means_ business this time. She’s mad at him for the exact same reason why he’s mad at himself, the exact same reason why she’s _always_ been mad at him – _why do you have to be so stubborn Takumi why do you keep throwing away your chances why can’t you just control your temper for once in your goddamn life_ – and he can’t look at her without the familiar feeling of shame rising in his gut, ugly and terrible.

Hinata and Oboro are sympathetic, but they do at least agree that most of it was Takumi’s own fault. Plus they’re not in the drama program. There’s not much they can do anyway.

Which means there’s nothing he can do apart from talk to the only other person who’s also responsible for this whole mess.

Said person is sitting right at the front of their English class, which is where Takumi is thinking about all this. Their teacher Keaton is droning on and on about Steinbeck or Woolf or Miller—Takumi hasn’t really been paying attention since the moment he walked into class; he’s been spending his time processing his options instead, and just as he arrives at the conclusion that _I guess I have no choice but to talk to Leo after all_ Keaton grins brightly and says, “And now, I’m going to announce your next pair project.”

His words are immediately met with groans and loud calls from across the classroom, and Takumi instantly snaps to attention, blinking.

He leans forward, pokes Oboro in the back from where she’s sitting in front of him.

“What did he say?” he whispers.

She turns around, rolls her eyes at him.

“Pair work,” she informs him.

Pair work in English has always been Takumi and Oboro because Hinata’s in a different class. There’s no reason to assume that this time is going to be any different, except—

Except he spots Leo near the front of the classroom, looking slightly lost. Niles isn’t in this class, and neither is Odin, who has somehow managed to befriend Leo as well.

 _Taking the bull by the horns,_ Takumi thinks.

“Oboro,” he says, getting out of his seat. “I am so, so sorry, and I’ll make it up to you next time.”

“Wait, what are you—” Oboro starts to say, but Takumi’s already walking towards the front of the classroom. He can feel his pulse thrumming in his throat. Why are his hands sweating? He shoves them into his pockets so nobody notices, and ends up just feeling completely stupid.

“Hey,” he says, standing in front of Leo’s desk. Leo looks up, and his expression immediately goes from hesitant to carefully disinterested.

“What do you want?” he asks. He says it like a challenge, not a question. Takumi ducks his head.

“I was wondering,” Takumi says, slowly, “if you’d like pair up with me.”

For a moment, his words are met with nothing but silence. Leo stares at him, and for a moment, for one moment so brief Takumi isn’t sure if he’s just imagining it, something slips through Leo’s carefully curated mask of indifference. For one moment, he looks almost _vulnerable_.

“You’re joking, right?” Leo says.

“If this is a joke,” Takumi returns, “it would be an extremely dangerous one, considering Oboro’s going to gouge out my eyes after school for not pairing up with her and leaving her to the mercy of Setsuna.”

As if on cue, the both of them turn to look at the back of classroom, where Oboro is visibly gritting her teeth as she gestures to a vacant-looking Setsuna. She looks like she’s half a second away from slamming her face against her desk.

“Point,” Leo says at last.

“Look,” Takumi says, fanning his hand out against Leo’s desk, palm down. “Keaton and Kaden are friends, or at least, they occasionally hang out together, and if Keaton lets slip that we’re doing this project together and actually learning to get along—”

“That might do the trick of persuading Kaden to let us back in,” Leo finishes.

Takumi's lips thin.

“Yes,” he says, with finality.

Briefly, Leo looks like he’s about to refuse—but he surveys the classroom, and almost everyone else has already found a partner. He looks down at his desk, at where Takumi’s hands with his still-bruised knuckles are laid flat across the wood.

“Fine,” he says. “But this had better work.”

Takumi exhales.

-

They’re supposed to work on a brief presentation of a book, and they end up getting assigned to Much Ado About Nothing, which in Takumi’s humble opinion is basically just a 17th century romcom, but he’s not complaining. It could be worse.

“We got Great Expectations,” Oboro tells him after class, groaning. “It’s five hundred pages long, and I’m working with _Setsuna_. Why does she even take this class?”

“The reason why all of Charles Dickens’ novels are so long is because he was paid by word,” Takumi muses. Oboro rolls her eyes.

“Thanks, Takumi,” she says. “That knowledge really helped me out here. Made me feel _so_ much better.”

Takumi laughs, and then looks away, tugs at his shirt nervously.

“Listen,” he begins. “I’m—”

“Sorry, I know.”

He turns back to look at Oboro, blinking. She’s giving him another one of her patented Oboro looks that makes him feel both like a complete idiot and extremely relieved at a same time.

“I know what you were trying to get at,” Oboro continues, nudging Takumi’s arm with her shoulder as they walk down the hallway.

“Well,” he says. “I hope Kaden gets it too, I guess.”

Oboro shoots Takumi a look.

“I think it was nice of you to do that, by the way,” she says. “Pairing up with the new kid.”

Takumi groans. He stops in his tracks; someone behind him bumps into him, swearing.

“You know, the two of you are way more similar than you care to admit,” Oboro continues without missing a beat. Takumi shoots her a dirty look, which she conveniently ignores.

“Similar how?” he asks, just to be contrary. Oboro hums, rubs her chin with her hand, pretending to be deep in thought.

“Let’s see,” she says, counting off on her free hand, “you’re both perfectionists, assholes, stupidly smart, overly competitive, have the average maturity of a twelve-year-old—”

“I resent that,” Takumi interrupts. Oboro laughs.

“But seriously though. I think if you just pulled your head out of your ass for once you guys could be—”

And there it is again. Takumi sucks in a breath.

“Please stop doing that,” he mutters.

“Stop doing what?”

“Acting like—like I’m trying to be _best friends forever_ with Leo or something. First Hana, now you—”

“Have you ever considered that maybe it’s because we’re right?” Oboro suggests.

“ _Listen_ ,” he says, the word coming out harsher than he intends it to be, “I don’t like Leo whatsoever and I have no intention of _ever_ being friends with him, okay? You know I’d rather be working with you, all _this_ is just to get my role back, and just because I’ve decided to be civil for once doesn’t mean that I don’t get sick at the sight of his face any longer—”

“Funny,” someone says from behind him. “That’s exactly how I feel.”

Takumi turns around, and of course, _of course_ , Leo’s standing there, looking all casual and cool. He hitches his backpack over his shoulder, hips cocked at an angle that can only be painfully deliberate.

“Leo,” Takumi says. His heart feels like it’s stopped in his chest.

“Takumi,” Leo says coolly. “We’ll work our project tomorrow—I’d like to get it over and done with as soon as possible. I’m sure you feel the same way.”

“I—” Takumi’s mouth is dry. He swallows. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

Leo nods, then brushes past Takumi as he goes. Oboro and Takumi both watch as Leo walks away.

“Shut up,” Takumi mumbles.

Oboro doesn’t say a thing, but Takumi can practically feel the way she’s rolling her eyes at him anyway.

-

Meeting Leo at the library the next day is. Awkward. Extremely.

For the first ten minutes, his mind is a continuous repeat of _should I apologize? No, I shouldn’t. Sure, I was being an asshole, but so was he._ But then he’d remember that strange flicker of vulnerability across Leo’s face, and then he’d go right back to debating the merits of apologizing.

For the next ten minutes after that, all he can think of is: _why is Leo so goddamn smart?_

Because he’s come with outlines and summaries and a bullet pointed list of themes, printed neatly on a crisp word document (Cambria, 11pt, 1.5 spacing), as he shows Takumi by swiveling his sleek MacBook Air around.

Takumi looks down at his notebook, which is blissfully empty.

“Right,” he says.

Leo sits back in the chair, looking smug as all hell. Takumi balls his hands into fists under the desk.

“Actually,” Takumi says. He lifts one hand, points at a particular bullet point, “I don’t fully agree with this point. I think you misunderstand Beatrice.”

Leo raises a perfect eyebrow.

“Please, do tell me more,” he says, except he makes it sound like he’s saying _I don’t know why you’re still allowed to breed._

“Well,” Takumi starts, slowly, as if he’s talking to a very small child, “you make her out to be some sort of caricature, but I think she’s may more complex than what you think.”

“I would argue that _every_ character in the play is a stereotype,” Leo says evenly. Takumi resists the urge to shout _you’re a fucking stereotype_ in Leo’s face. They _are_ in a library.

“Well considering that we’re talking about Shakespeare over here, he probably actually created whatever stereotypes you’re thinking of, so—”

“Where’s your proof?”

“Obviously I don’t _have_ proof right now—”

“Maybe you would if you’d actually done research before coming here today.”

Takumi opens his mouth, shuts it again. He looks down at his hands, exhales slowly.

“Okay,” Takumi says. “Listen. I’m an actor. You’re an actor. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re a halfway decent one.”

Leo raises both his eyebrows. Takumi grits his teeth.

“My point being,” he continues, slowly, “that you can afford to pretend to like me a little better.”

Leo’s eyes flash dangerously. Takumi can practically see the gears turning in his head, trying to find a hole he can poke in Takumi’s argument, some other way to insult him or put him down or inform him why everything is entirely _his fault_. And just as easily, Takumi can see the exact moment when Leo decides that it’s not worth it.

“Fine,” he says finally. He looks away. Takumi braces himself. “So you were saying…”

“Right,” Takumi responds, keeping his tone as neutral as possible. He shifts in his seat, leans forward to get a better look at Leo’s laptop. “You’re not wrong, it’s just that I think you’re missing some points over here—” He trails off, gesturing to the keyboard.

“Do you mind?” he asks. Leo looks at him like Takumi’s just confessed to being an alien from Mars.

“No,” he says, a beat too late. He pushes the laptop across the table. Takumi accepts it graciously.

And so they work on the project in relative peace. Takumi corrects Leo’s arguments, bickers with him over the finer points of the play. Leo’s mostly right, even though Takumi doesn’t want to admit it. Still, he holds his own, he hopes, and by the time they decide that they’re done for the day Takumi’s feeling a lot better about himself that he’d expected.

“So,” Leo says. They’re standing outside the library, ready to go their separate ways. It’s almost evening by now; the sky’s getting dark. Takumi wonders if rehearsals are ending soon too.

“So,” Takumi echoes.

There’s no buffer now between them. There’s no laptop on the table as a convenient shield. Takumi isn’t too busy trying to explain why _no, As You Like It is not superior to Much Ado About Nothing in the least bit_ to remember all the exact reasons why they got into this mess in the first place. Now it’s just—weird.

“Tomorrow?” Takumi suggests.

It’s a perfectly innocuous suggestion, which is why he doesn’t expect it at all when Leo’s expression shutters abruptly. Now he looks more like the boy he punched in the jaw all those days ago, more like the boy who sneered at him outside the school’s theater. It takes a moment for Takumi to realize that Leo hadn’t looked like that at all for the past two hours. He’d looked relaxed. Like a regular kid.

“I can’t tomorrow,” Leo says curtly. “But we’re not in a rush to finish, are we?”

There’s an insult on the tip of Takumi’s tongue, about not wanting to see Leo’s face any more than strictly necessary. He swallows it back down.

“Right,” Takumi says. “Right.”

He looks down at their feet. Leo’s shoes are dirty, he realizes, crusted with dirt, white fading into grey. They look like they haven’t been washed in a while. It strikes Takumi as strange, given how the rest of his clothes are perfectly immaculate.

“Next week, then,” Leo says.

Takumi nods absently. “Yeah, okay, can I get your number?”

There’s a long silence.

Takumi realizes what he just said.

“Oh, god.” He has to stop himself from physically face-palming. “No, I meant like—to decide when to…” His voice trails off after that. He thinks he might actually be too embarrassed to speak.

Leo squints at him. He pulls his phone from his pocket, presses it into Takumi’s hand.

“Just key in your number,” he says, all casual. “I’ll text you.”

This is the worst idea he’s ever had in his entire life, and that includes the one time in middle school when he thought throwing out his entire wardrobe and replacing it with only Hot Topic was a good idea. Which is exactly why he keys in his number, gives Leo his phone back, and resolutely does not meet his eyes.

“Later,” he says, hiking his backpack over his shoulder, and then turns to leave. Immediately.

-

And then the unthinkable happens.

“ _Grounded_?” Takumi says.

Ryoma just folds his arms.

“You’re fucking with me,” he says.

“Language,” Ryoma says.

“Fuck you,” Takumi says.

There is an extremely long and extremely tense moment where they just stare at each other. Takumi has his hands balled into fists, which just reminds him of how it felt to sucker-punch Leo in the face, which also leads him to the entire reason why he’s having this argument in the first place.

“You’re not that much older than me,” Takumi continues. “You can’t do this.”

“I wouldn’t have to if you just learned to act your age.”

Takumi actually physically winces at Ryoma’s words. He inhales sharply, looks away.

“It’s not like you’re ever at home anyway, there’s no way you’ll actually be able to enforce anything.”

“I’m sure our neighbors would be more than happy to babysit.”

“ _Babysit_?” And _now_ Takumi’s not even bothering to keep his voice down any longer. He throws his arms up, and his voice is climbing hysterically and he can’t bring himself to give a damn. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not a _child_.”

“Well you’re certainly acting like one right now,” Ryoma replies, and his voice is still so even and calm and Takumi is about to _snap_.

“Screw you,” Takumi says. “Stop trying to be dad. You’re never gonna make up for him.”

For one terrible moment he thinks Ryoma’s actually going to yell at him—Ryoma, who is always calm and taciturn, who when mom and dad died handled the funeral and the will and everything else that came with it with nothing more than a quiet solemnity.

But instead all he says is, “I wish I didn’t have to be.”

And for the first time Takumi really _looks_ at Ryoma—the dark eye circles, the permanent furrow of his brow. He looks tired. He looks tired in a way that he never used to back when he was in school, back before shit hit the fan and their lives suddenly fell apart; and there it is again: that almost overwhelming feeling of shame that starts like an acidic burn in his gut, then travels upwards like bile stuck in the back his throat.

Takumi unclenches his fists.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Ryoma looks at him, really looks at him. His expression is indecipherable. For a split second, Takumi finds himself wondering what on earth he’s seeing.

“I am too,” Ryoma replies.

-

So Takumi comes home after school now, even though he doesn’t really have to, even though there’s really no way for Ryoma to know where he is at any given moment (threats of a babysitter never actually materializing because in hindsight the both of them realize how stupid that idea really is). He comes home, does his homework, makes dinner with Sakura, doesn’t pick fights, keeps his head down, tries to be as well-behaved as he can possibly be.

And then Leo texts him.

 _Library again tomorrow?_ it reads, and Takumi stares at his phone for a full minute before he texts back:

_Why don’t you come over to my place?_

And then he turns his phone off, leaves it on his desk, and resolutely ignores it for the next six hours.

When he finally musters up the courage to turn it on again his phone is nearly dying and there’s a single notification.

 _Okay_ , it reads.

Okay. Just okay. Nothing else.

Takumi just shoves it under his pillow. He’ll charge it in the morning.

-

“Sorry,” Takumi tells Leo the next day. “I need to be home to watch Sakura, so—”

“That’s fine,” Leo says. “I get it.”

They’re at Takumi’s house, and all of a sudden Takumi finds himself inexplicably nervous. It’s as if he’s seeing his home through the eyes of a stranger for the first time—the framed photographs along the hallway, the messy collection of cushions and throw blankets on their aging sofa, the note in his mother’s handwriting still pinned to the fridge door.

He shows Leo to the dining room, sets his laptop down on the table and busies himself with turning it on to distract himself from the way his heart is hammering in his chest. He thinks about the upstairs bedrooms, where Takumi and Sakura used to share a room before Hinoka moved out for college. Sakura has her room now, fairy lights and anime posters side-by-side with Hinoka’s old sports memorabilia. Ryoma’s room is on the opposite end of the hallway, sterile and neat. And then there’s their parents’ room that no one’s been in for at least a year. He wonders what Leo would make of it all. If Leo’d see right through him with just one look.

They’re both silent for a long time. Takumi has his eyes glued to his laptop, isn’t looking at what Leo’s doing at all. His neighbor’s kids are making a racket, and the distant sounds of their shrieking are all he can hear right now.

It’s Leo who eventually breaks the silence.

“Do you play?” he asks. Takumi finally looks up, and he realizes what Leo’s talking about: he’s gesturing towards the piano on the other end of the room, pushed neatly against the wall.

“Oh.” Takumi shakes himself, makes himself meet Leo’s gaze head-on. He looks genuinely interested, and it catches Takumi off guard. He clears his throat. “No, no, I don’t—Sakura does, though. And Ryoma too, although it’s been years since he even touched that thing.”

Here he pauses. He’s not sure what he’s allowed to say, how much he should share about his life. This _thing_ with Leo suddenly feels tenuous and strange. They’re not friends, not exactly, but they’ve achieved some form of a stalemate, a balance that could be upset at any moment with just a single word. But Leo’s here in his house, this old house with its mismatched furniture and faded memories and he thinks back to Hana and Oboro’s words: friends, maybe. He thinks of Sakura’s soft hands and Hinoka’s tiny smile and the exhaustion in Ryoma’s face, and he thinks maybe he should try after all.

So he looks away and says, carefully, “Everyone in my family has to have at least one useless talent. Piano is just one option.”

“Oh? And what’s yours?”

Takumi turns to Leo, and he’s—smiling. He looks surprised, his eyes wide, almost as if the smile on his face slipped out by accident.

Come to think of it, has Takumi ever seen Leo smile before?

“Acting, of course,” he says, and Leo actually _laughs_.

Takumi doesn’t stare. He doesn’t. He just—looks. At the way Leo suddenly looks so much younger, lighter.

He turns away quickly, maybe far too quickly, looks back at his laptop.

“Anyway,” he says. “So about the project—”

“Right,” Leo says. “Right.”

So they get to work, and they fall back into their previous rhythm, shooting ideas back and forth, challenging statements just for the sake of it, occasional sidetracks as their arguments continue to spiral, eventually hammering out something the both of them can successfully agree with. They work together well, Takumi realizes. It’s nice to have someone to bounce ideas off, someone who takes Takumi’s ideas and spares no expense in taking them apart and putting them back together, bigger and better than before.

It’s disconcerting, trying to reconcile the boy who put his fist against Takumi’s face the first time they rehearsed together and the boy who’s sitting across him now, silently typing away on his laptop. Disconcerting, but not difficult, because Takumi thinks maybe he understands Leo better now. That in many ways that must be what Leo thinks of him too.

“Okay,” Leo finally says. “I think we’re done.”

Takumi looks over what they’ve come up with—a simple powerpoint presentation with accompanying notes in a word document. It’s good. It’s comprehensive and intelligent and neatly formatted.

“Yeah,” he says. “I think we are.”

Silence falls over the both of them, and all of a sudden it’s awkward again because—what, is Leo supposed to leave? Is Takumi supposed to stand up and show him to the front door now? Is there some etiquette involved in this? God, he’s a mess. It’s the same as the library all over again. Take this project away and what other reason is there for them to even interact at all?

“You know,” Leo says, suddenly. “We should probably rehearse our parts in Romeo and Juliet. To prepare for when we get back to rehearsals.”

“When? Not if?” Takumi asks. “Overconfident, aren’t you?”

Leo shrugs. “Kaden hasn’t recast anyone yet, which probably means he still intends for us to be in it.”

“And how would you know that?”

Leo rolls his eyes like it should be obvious. “Niles told me, of course.”

“ _Niles told you_ , of fucking course,” Takumi mutters.

“You don’t like him?” Leo asks, except he looks amused and not offended, so Takumi thinks he’s probably not in any danger of getting punched in the face again.

“I barely know him,” Takumi says. Leo snorts.

“So why so hostile?”

“I guess me disliking people on a completely irrational basis seems to be a recurring trend.”

Leo shoots him a look.

“What?” Takumi says, defensive.

“So you admit that your disliking me was completely irrational,” Leo says. His lips curve into an amused half-smile, the corners of his lips curling upwards. Takumi looks away.

“Who says I was referring to you?” he mutters.

“So you spend your free time going around just hating people, is that it?”

“Fuck you,” Takumi snaps, which is just as good as giving up on the argument, and Leo then _grins_ , bright and easy and triumphant. He’s smiled more in the past few hours than he has in the entire time Takumi’s known him, he realizes. When did they go from wanting to tear each other’s throats out to this easy banter? Takumi isn’t quite sure what to make of this new revelation.

“I’d think us rehearsing together would count towards proving that we can work together as well,” Leo points out, and. Right. Back to the whole reason why they’re doing this in the first place. Showing Kaden that they’re able to be mature adults around each other. Of course.

And it’s at that exact moment that Sakura pokes her head round the door.

“Um,” she begins. Leo and Takumi both turn to look at her.

“Hello,” Leo says. “You must be Sakura.”

And then Sakura’s face turns a startling shade of red.

“A-are you staying for dinner?” she gets out, her stutter ten times worse than normal.

“No, it’s fine,” Leo says. “I was just about to leave.”

Takumi raises both his eyebrows at her. She tries to glare at him, but the effect is very much dulled by the way her entire face looks like it’s about two seconds away from spontaneously bursting into flames.

“Right,” Takumi says, mostly out of pity, because Sakura looks like it’s actually physically painful for her to speak right now. “I’ll just show Leo out then.”

Sakura looks simultaneously disappointed and relieved. Takumi would laugh in her face if he wasn’t absolutely sure that he’d just end up feeling bad.

So she disappears back to her room as Takumi waits for Leo to pack up his stuff. He gets up, ushers Leo back through the hallway with the old photographs. He watches Leo look at them, his eyes skimming across the photo frames. He wonders, for the second time today, what Leo must make of all this.

“So, about rehearsing together,” Leo says.

“Yeah, sure,” Takumi says. “We’ll work something out.”

He pauses, hesitating.

“You can come over again, if you want,” he adds, almost as an afterthought. Leo looks at him, his eyes widening.

“Really,” he says, deadpan in spite of the surprise spreading across his face.

“Yes, really.” Takumi scowls. “Don’t make me rescind the offer.”

“Well,” Leo says, “if you insist.”

There’s a lull in the conversation, and for a moment Takumi thinks Leo’s about to turn and leave; instead he folds his hands together and says, “Thank you for having me.”

And that, more than anything else that’s happened today, is what catches Takumi completely off guard. It takes a second for him to get his bearings again, running his hand through his hair before he says, “It’s no big deal. Really.”

Leo just looks at him like there’s something on the tip of his tongue; but he doesn’t say anything, just claps Takumi on the shoulder before he heads back down the sidewalk. Takumi doesn’t say anything either, just watches him go, the dawning realization that he still doesn’t know anything about Leo at all sitting heavy in his chest.


	4. rehearsals, part 2

Leo says, “Could you maybe pretend to be dead a little better?”

Takumi squints up at him.

“Dude,” he says, “you just fucking stabbed me.”

“Not well enough, clearly,” Leo responds.

Takumi groans and sits up, rubs his hands across his face.

“This is getting nowhere,” he proclaims.

“As much as I’m inclined not to,” Leo begins.

“Oh, shut up—”

“I do agree with you.”

Takumi sighs loudly.

“See? Was it really that hard to agree with me?”

“You have no idea.”

And then Leo sits down next to Takumi, joins him on the floor with his legs crossed neatly in front of him. They’re in Takumi’s living room, rehearsing—or at least, attempting to. It’s not going well, not least because of the fact that this scene is meant to involve a minimum of four actors, two of which die halfway through the scene.

They’ve pushed the sofa aside to create enough space for them to move around, and now Leo leans against the back of the couch, letting his head fall back against it with a dull thud. Takumi looks at the pale curve of Leo’s neck, the flutter of his lashes against his cheek when he closes his eyes. It’s weird, he thinks, just how not-weird it is for Leo to be here; he’s been over a few times since the first time he visited for their English project, dropping by to practice for their presentation or to talk about the show, and by now they’ve built up some sort of a rhythm, or at least, a familiarity towards each other. Leo’s even had dinner here a couple of times (both times Sakura looked like she was _thisclose_ to passing out over the dinner table, and Takumi’s still not sure if Leo even noticed), and it’s surprisingly—normal. Not-weird. Nice, even.

Then Leo’s blinking at him, and Takumi realizes he’s been staring. He turns away quickly, but if Leo catches him looking he doesn’t say anything about it at all.

“Maybe we should just give up for today,” Leo suggests, and Takumi makes a vague noise of agreement.

“I’m starving,” he announces, getting up. “Do you want anything to eat?”

He stretches out a hand, but Leo doesn’t take it, shifts and stands up on his own.

“Anything’s fine,” Leo says. “Maybe not pop tarts, though.”

“Do you not like pop tarts?” Takumi asks, going for mock offended, putting a hand on his chest. Leo just shrugs.

‘I’m British, remember,” he says. “I’m allergic to anything that actually tastes good.”

Takumi just snorts as he leads Leo to their kitchen. He digs into the fridge (the handwritten note in his mom’s handwriting is still there on the fridge door, and he stops himself from wondering if Leo’s looking at it), pulls out a bowl of leftover pasta from dinner the night before.

“Did you make that?” Leo asks.

“Yes,” Takumi says.

“Are you sure that’s edible?” Leo says.

“Fuck you,” Takumi shoots back. “As if you could do better.”

“You know, I _can_ actually cook,” Leo tells him.

Takumi almost drops the entire bowl.

“You don’t have to act so surprised,” Leo mutters, scowling.

“I just thought you looked like you’d have a butler or a personal chef or something,” Takumi says, righting himself and putting the pasta in the microwave. Leo snorts.

“What ever gave you that impression?”

“You just look like the typical rich kid type. You know.” Takumi puts on the worst British accent he can possibly muster and says, “ _My father owns six Porsches and a Ferrari because he’s a baron or lord or something or other_.”

Takumi laughs, because it’s a joke, it’s obviously a joke, which is why he doesn’t expect it at all when Leo’s expression abruptly shutters, his face going perfectly blank in a split-second.

“Leo?” Takumi says.

Leo shakes himself, blinking. The microwave goes off just then, and he moves to get their food, turns his back to Takumi.

“I’m fine,” he says. “It’s nothing.”

It most definitely didn’t look like _nothing_ , but Takumi doesn’t say anything, just puts is hand on Leo’s shoulder gently.

Leo turns to him, surprised. It takes a second, but his expression softens, and he looks at Takumi, smiles.

“Now let’s hope I don’t die from food poisoning,” he says in an approximation of normalcy, and if that’s what he’s going for, Takumi isn’t going to begrudge him.

So instead of saying what he wants to say ( _it’s really not nothing Leo, something’s up, please tell me what I said wrong, why don’t you ever tell me anything about yourself_ ) he just shoves Leo playfully, goes on a spiel about his cooking prowess, and it’s easy and normal but Takumi can’t help but be worried anyway.

Still. Leo’s smiling and open and relaxed now, so Takumi thinks this conversation can probably wait for some other time.

-

The days pass quickly. Takumi and Leo finish their presentation, and obviously they ace it.

Kaden lets them back into rehearsals. He catches the both of them in the hallway, and when he sees them actually walking together, talking to each other and smiling, the shock on his face is almost enough to make Takumi burst out into laughter right in front of him. Fortunately, he manages to restrain himself long enough to see the look on Kaden’s face morph into a pleased grin.

“I see you’ve managed to prove a point,” Kaden tells them, beaming.

“Then,” Takumi begins, slowly, “are we back in the play?”

The smile on Kaden’s face only grows wider, and Takumi lets out a sigh of relief.

-

“CELEBRATION!” Hinata yells. Takumi squints at him from where he’s slouched over his sofa.

“Sit down,” Oboro calls, sprawled out next to Takumi. “We’re about to start on season thirteen.”

“Of?” Hinata says.

“Project Runway,” Oboro says. “Duh.”

Hinata visibly deflates. He sits down next to Takumi, slams the shopping bag he’s holding onto his lap—ostensibly to prove a point, although it would probably make more of an impact if it actually made a satisfying thump noise instead of just producing the sound of rustling plastic.

“I went out and bought all this food,” he moans, “and you repay me by forcing me to watch more of Project Runway?”

“Project Runway is a reward, not a chore,” Oboro chides.

“Anyway, isn’t this meant to be a celebration for Takumi getting back in the show? What does _he_ want to watch?” Hinata says, looking at Takumi meaningfully as he speaks.

“Takumi _likes_ Project Runway,” Oboro fires back, which Takumi knows with almost absolute certainty is the single biggest lie she’s ever told in her entire life.

Truthfully, Takumi would watch anything in the world if he could have Oboro and Hinata right there next to him, but he can’t say _that_ to them, so instead he turns to Oboro, tries to make himself look as pitiful as possible, and says, “Actually, it’s technically Hinata’s turn to pick the movie this week.”

Hinata gives him a look like Takumi’s just confessed to shooting his dog.

“Um,” Hinata says. Oboro swivels around to look at him. Hinata rummages through the shopping bag and produces a bag of potato chips. He holds it out to Oboro. “Peace offering?”

Oboro gives him a measured look for a long moment before plucking the bag from his hands.

“Fine,” she says, but not before ripping the bag open and fishing out a handful of chips. “We can watch the Avengers if you want to.”

“Yes!” Hinata does a little fist pump. Oboro rolls her eyes at him, but it doesn’t quite hide the way her lips quirk into an amused smile, and Takumi suddenly wonders how much they’ve planned in advance—the food, the movie choice, the easy conversation. Affection for his friends blooms in his chest, tender and sharp, and he presses it down by busying himself with setting the movie up.

He’s halfway through trying to connect his laptop to the TV when his phone pings with a text message. He doesn’t think twice of it when Hinata reaches for it to help Takumi check his message, and it takes approximately half a second for him to regret not keeping his phone in his pocket at all times when Hinata yells out, “ _What_?”

Takumi turns around, but Hinata’s already shoved the phone in Oboro’s face. She’s looking down at it with her eyes wide enough for it to be almost comical.

Oboro snatches the offending phone up, squints down at the screen, and says, “I didn’t know you and Leo were actually friends.”

“Give me that,” Takumi snaps, grabbing the phone from Oboro’s hands, and sure enough, there’s a text message from Leo right on the screen. It’s a question about the scene they’ve been trying to rehearse, nothing that they don’t usually talk about anyway, but when he looks up from his phone again Oboro and Hinata are looking at him like they’re expecting _answers_.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Takumi mutters.

“Maybe start with when you stopped wanting to punch his face in and started actually being a rational human being,” Oboro suggests.

“I just—“ Takumi pauses, looks away. “He’s not so bad,” he mumbles, “when you get to know him.”

“Just admit that we were right already,” Hinata says, grinning. Takumi looks away.

“Fine,” he says. “You were right. I was wrong.”

“Sorry,” Oboro says. “Can you repeat that again? Let me get my phone so I can record that down.”

“You guys are the worst friends ever,” Takumi pronounces.

“At least I didn’t have to punch you in the face first before you started liking me,” Oboro says sweetly. Hinata sniggers. Takumi puts his head in his hands and sighs.

-

First day back at rehearsals is hard. In the time they’ve been gone the cast has made significant progress; in hindsight it’s probably a good thing that both Mercutio and Tybalt both die pretty much halfway through the show. At least that means they haven’t really missed much.

Still, there’s a lot to catch up on—they’re doing the fight scene right off the bat, and there’s fight choreography to learn and blocking to remember, and Takumi thinks he’s probably gotten lazy these past couple of weeks because he’s forgotten how _demanding_ rehearsals can be. There’s no time for fooling around, even though when they get to the part where he actually has to pretend to die all he can think of is Leo criticizing his portrayal of a corpse and he has to actually stop himself from snorting.

They’re practicing with the actual props they’ll be using for the actual show, fake swords that would be a lot more impressive if Takumi didn’t know for a fact that they’re at least six years old and have been covered in multiple coats of silver paint over the years to hide the rust. If Mercutio really did get stabbed with one of these he’d probably die from an infection before the blood loss even kicked in.

“Focus!” Kaden shouts and. Right. Right. They’re in rehearsal.

Learning fight choreography is a lot like learning to dance. There are steps and there is a rhythm.

Coincidentally, Takumi is terrible at dancing.

“It’s _up_ first, then down,” Leo snarls.

“I _know_ ,” Takumi snaps, even though in all honesty he really doesn’t. It’s times like these when he remembers what exactly he hated about Leo so much when they first met. That irrational anger’s mostly disappeared by now, although that doesn’t change the fact that Leo’s still an insufferable asshole.

“Again,” Kaden says. “From Romeo’s entrance.”

Leo shoots him a look that’s way too judgmental considering the fact that he’s also visibly struggling to get it right. Takumi would flip him the bird if he wasn’t so busy trying to memorize the steps— _up three times, and then down, and then dodge to the left, and why does it sound like I’m charting out a song on DDR, jesus fucking christ._ At least Laslow and Silas are here too, and they’re being nice about it. Unlike Leo, who is probably physically unable to not be the smarmiest person in the room at any given time.

And so they repeat it. Again. And again. And again. By the end of it Takumi is sweating, which just isn’t supposed to happen. There is a reason he’s an actor and not an athlete.

“Good work, boys,” Kaden’s saying, grinning brightly. “I’ll see you back here tomorrow.”

There are a lot of different words Takumi could use to describe the past four hours, and _good work_ is definitely not one of them. Still, Laslow claps him on the back, says cheerily, “I’m so glad you’re back, man.”

It takes a moment, but Takumi shakes himself, turns to Laslow, smiles. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m glad too.”

And he really is. He’s sweaty and exhausted and his mind is still spinning with choreography, but it really does feel good to be back here, surrounded by friends, keeping himself busy, knowing that he’s actually doing something productive now.

“How’ve things been so far?” Takumi asks as they pack up for the day. Next to him, Laslow grins.

“Great, great. You know, I’m starting to think that Hana might actually be warming up to me…”

And on he goes. Takumi’s only really half-listening as Laslow goes on about how Hana hasn’t attempted to slap him across the face yet, and all of a sudden he misses her terribly. They haven’t spoken since he got kicked out of rehearsals. He really hopes she isn’t still mad at him.

“You know,” Laslow continues, “I was thinking of asking her out after the show’s over.”

Takumi turns to look at him.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Laslow asks, suddenly anxious.

“You should totally do it,” Takumi says earnestly. Laslow beams, but then Takumi continues, “Just make sure you do it while I’m there with a video camera and a first aid kit.”

Laslow sighs dramatically, his shoulders drooping. “Always so cruel, Takumi,” he laments.

“No offense, but I really have no idea why you’re still trying,” Takumi says.

“Well, if you and Leo actually managed to become friends, anything’s possible.”

“That’s really not the same thing.”

“Isn’t it?” Laslow muses. Takumi shoves him away.

“It’s really not,” he says emphatically. Takumi hikes his backpack up over his shoulder, turns to look around the room. “Wait, speaking of Leo, where did he go?”

Leo’s not there, and neither is Silas. Laslow looks around as well, shrugs. “Maybe they went home together,” he says.

Takumi frowns; he’d wanted to talk to Leo, ask him about the fight scene or English homework or something _,_ but he’d just— _left_ , and the irritation that rises up all of a sudden is unexpected and strange. He pushes it down, turns to Laslow, smiles and says, “Well, I better get going too.”

And so they say their goodbyes and their see-you-tomorrows, and as Takumi leaves all he can think of is how, even despite patching things up with Leo, it still hasn’t changed just how it easy for him to get under Takumi’s skin without even trying.

-

He doesn’t see Leo for a while. They still go to the same classes, and they still text, and they still go to rehearsals together, but somehow it feels—different. Like there’s a barrier between them that wasn’t there before, even back when they both still hated each other’s guts. Like Leo’s _avoiding_ him on purpose, but that’s—that can’t be, because why would Leo avoid him when they’re actually friends now? But there’s no other explanation for the way Leo keeps brushing him off with excuses of _I can’t today_ , the way Leo’s almost always been busy every time Takumi’s tried to talk to him, flanked with Odin and Niles on both sides as he carefully avoids eye contact in the hallway.

It’s more frustrating than Takumi could’ve ever expected. It also makes him realize just how used he’s become to Leo’s presence, studying with him in the library, hanging out in Takumi’s living room, bickering about everything from homework to Shakespeare to world history.

Against all odds, they’re actually friends now. Or were. Takumi wishes Leo would actually start acting _normal_ again so he’d actually know.

He does try to patch things up with Hana, though, and if it feels like he’d gaining back a friend only to lose another—well. He doesn’t dwell on that thought for too long.

It takes way too long and far too many terrible ideas from the hive mind of disaster that is the combined efforts of Laslow and Odin, but eventually Takumi just waits for Hana one day after rehearsals before going up to her and saying, as honestly as possible, “I’m sorry for being a jerk.”

They’re standing in front of the door to the theatre; people are filing out from behind them, some feigning indifference a lot better than others. Leo isn’t there—he’s not in this scene, because Tybalt’s dead, and so is Mercutio for that matter—so Takumi just sticks his hands into his pockets, puts his head down, and resolutely ignores the fact that he can hear, with extreme clarity, Laslow and Odin’s blow-by-blow commentary from behind him.

“You know,” Hana says at last. “I think you’ve apologized to me more times this past month than you’ve actually been in rehearsals.”

Takumi turns away, shamefaced.

“I’m shit, I know, you don’t have to tell me,” he mutters.

“Go away, both of you,” Hana calls, raising her voice. Takumi turns around just in time to see Laslow and Odin scuttle away faster than he’s ever seen them run. When he turns back Hana’s looking at him, her expression indecipherable.

“Look, Takumi, I think of you as a really good friend,” she says insistently. “And I’m not angry at you any longer.”

“You’re not?” The surprise slips into Takumi’s voice by accident. Hana’s expression softens, and she smiles.

“I don’t hold grudges, you know,” she tells him.

“Debatable,” Takumi returns.

Hana’s smile widens, and relief instantly bubbles in Takumi’s chest in the form of an exhale.

“Thank you,” she says, after a pause, “for apologizing.”

Takumi rubs the back of his neck. “Well,” he says. “I’ve been learning a thing or two about admitting to being a complete asshole.”

Hana’s eyes widen, and then suddenly she’s grinning at him like she knows something he doesn’t.

“Leo?” she asks. Takumi winces.

“That obvious?”

“What else do you think we talk about when we’re rehearsing scenes you’re not involved in?”

“I don’t know,” Takumi says. “The value of minding your own business?”

Hana attempts to punch him on the arm, a gesture that Takumi thinks is probably meant to be friendly but knows for a fact will end up hurting like a bitch, and so he neatly side-steps it without even blinking.

“But let me just say—” Hana begins.

“You told me so, I know,” Takumi sighs. “It feels like everyone’s been telling me that lately.”

“Maybe you should start listening to your friends more often, then,” Hana says lightly.

Takumi groans. Hana beams at him.

“In all seriousness though,” she continues, “I’m glad you and Leo are finally friends now.”

And then something must show on Takumi’s face, because Hana’s expression shifts, her smile fading into concern.

“Takumi?” she prompts.

Sometimes, Takumi wishes he wasn’t so damn obvious all the time.

“It’s nothing,” he tries, and then regrets instantly because there’s no way in hell Hana’s going to let that pass. He looks away, tries again, “It’s just—I’m not sure if we’re _actually_ friends.”

“What do you mean?”

Takumi pauses. He thinks of the past few weeks of easy friendship, of talking to Leo and laughing with him and sending him dumb literature memes that no one else will ever get. He thinks of Leo, cagey and uncertain the first time they met in the library. He thinks of the words _you can afford to pretend to like me a little better_ falling carelessly from his lips, of the way Leo’s eyes narrowed dangerously at the words. He thinks of Leo telling him _sorry, I have to get home early today_ without meeting his eyes even once, and he turns to Hana and says, “I think I’ve been a total fucking idiot.”

And then he tells her. About the project, about meeting in the library, about the argument with Ryoma and about Leo looking at the old photographs that line the hallway of his home. (He doesn’t tell her about the way Leo had looked sitting on the floor of his living room, quiet and still and perfectly calm. He doesn’t tell her about the curve of Leo’s smile and the sound of Leo’s laugh, and how strange it’d felt the first time he realized he didn’t hate Leo at all anymore. Far from it.)

He tells her, “I think he doesn’t actually like me all that much.”

It’s the first time he’s actually vocalized the thought, and it almost unseats him just much of an impact the words have on him—saying it out loud, admitting to himself that _I think I actually really enjoy being friends with Leo_. Oboro told him, once, that he was allergic to feelings, and though she’d said it as a joke he’s starting to think she might actually be right.

But then Hana sighs loudly, crosses her arms and says, “Of _course_ Leo actually likes you” and Takumi finds himself unbalanced once more.

“How do you know for sure?” he asks, and Hana gives him a look that’s as close to pitying as she can possibly get before Takumi starts getting actually offended.

“He’s been a lot happier, you know,” she says. “Since you started being friends with him.”

Takumi is silent.

“Before you ask me how I know _that_ , I do actually care about him too. We all do,” Hana adds. “It’s been hard for him, transferring at the start of senior year and all, but—” She pauses, pushes her hair back behind her ear. “I think it’s nice he found someone who understands him, that’s all.”

Does Takumi understand Leo though? Does he really?

But then he takes a moment to actually think about Hana’s words, and it suddenly reminds him of that day in their English classroom, classmates who’ve known each other since elementary school pairing up together easily while Leo just sat there in silence. He thinks of the way Leo’s expression had closed on him that day, the both of them standing in his kitchen, afternoon sunlight streaming in through an open window.

Suddenly, he just feels like an absolute jackass.

“Look,” Hana says, her voice very gentle. “All I’m saying is that if Leo’s been acting weird there’s probably a reason for it, and maybe you should just talk to him about it.”

Takumi thinks of Leo, the Leo who is insufferable and arrogant and frightfully competent. Then he thinks of Leo with his dirty shoes and soft smile and the rare moments where he actually lets down his guard, and Takumi thinks maybe he understands Leo better than he’d thought all along.

“Yeah,” he says. “I think you’re right.”

-

It takes maybe far too long for Takumi to talk to Leo considering the fact that they still see each other regularly for rehearsals. He just never finds the right time to do it, and okay, maybe it does have to do with the fact that the prospect of having to actually _talk_ about his feelings makes Takumi feel physically ill, but. It’s mostly because Leo’s being even more evasive than usual. Honestly.

But then one day the opportunity practically presents itself to him—they’ve both arrived early for rehearsals, and no one else is here yet, and Takumi’s sitting next to Leo on the lip of the stage, and they’re not speaking, and Takumi thinks to himself, _fuck it_.

“Are you mad at me?” he asks, and it’s the wrong thing to say, because Leo’s eyes immediately widen before he looks away again.

“No, of course not,” Leo says. “What gave you that idea?”

Takumi has to consciously refrain from rolling his eyes at Leo. _Be nice_ , he reminds himself. _Remember what Hana said. Don’t be a dick._

And so he decides that honesty is the best policy, and if this ends disastrously at least he’ll never have to look Leo in the eye ever again apart from purely professional reasons, so he squares his shoulders and says, “It just feels like you’ve been avoiding me lately.”

Next to him, he hears Leo’s breath hitch.

“I didn’t think it would bother you,” he says after a beat. This time Takumi doesn’t stop his incredulousness from coloring his tone.

“Seriously?” he snaps. “You didn’t think it would _bother_ me for my friend to just suddenly stop talking to me?”

There’s a very long pause. Then:

“Is that what we are?” Leo asks. His voice is very small. “Friends?”

Takumi looks at Leo; his face is tilted away, but Takumi can see that same look on his face, unsure and uncertain.

“Of course we are,” Takumi says.

Leo is quiet. Takumi watches him, the complicated flicker of emotions that pass across his face. Leo folds his hands together, a gesture that Takumi recognizes by now as hesitation, a distraction when he doesn’t know what to say.

“I just thought,” he says at last, “now that we’re back at rehearsals, you didn’t have a reason to talk to me any longer, and you had your other friends, so—”

“Leo,” Takumi says, “for someone so smart, you can be pretty damn stupid sometimes.”

Leo doesn’t say anything in response. Takumi looks at him, the profile of his face, the way his hair falls gracefully over his forehead when he angles his head downwards.

 _It’s been hard for him_ , Hana had said. _It was nice of you do that,_ Oboro had said, _pairing up with the new kid. Thank you for having me,_ Leo had said, the first time he came to Takumi’s house.

“How about we start over?” Takumi says now, sitting next to Leo in an empty theatre. He extends a hand, and Leo stares at it.

“Friends,” Leo says, as if testing out a foreign word, the shape of it unfamiliar on his tongue.

Takumi nods.

Leo looks at Takumi’s outstretched hand, wavering; but then he takes it, shakes it firmly, fingers closing around the back of Takumi’s palm.

He looks back up at Takumi, smiles hesitantly, and Takumi lets himself smile back.


	5. tech

It’s tech week.

Also known as the week where Takumi runs on at least two cups of coffee a day and yet still manages to fall asleep in almost every single one of his classes. Also known as the week where he starts being an asshole to basically _everybody_ , propriety and human civility be damned. Also known as the week that Hinata refers to (giggling the whole time) as Takumi’s ‘time of the month’, which earns him a smack on the head from Oboro and a particularly venomous glare from Takumi for his troubles.

At the very least, he knows better by now than to tell Takumi to _take it easy, it’s not that big of a deal_ by now. The fallout from that one incident was enough to level an entire city, probably.

Here’s the thing that non-theatre people will never understand about tech week: it’s not also called _hell week_ for nothing.

The very moment the last bell rings Takumi finds himself shoving his books carelessly into his bag, standing up, and then making a run for it. If he’s lucky he has time to grab a quick bite to eat before he pretty much just barrels headfirst into the theatre, and no matter how quickly he tries to there he’s always one of the last few people there, and no matter how fast he tries to run he always, _always_ ends up seeing Leo already there, sitting at the lip of the stage; Leo, who’s always in the middle of conversation with Odin or Niles or someone, who pauses whenever Takumi walks in just to look up, smile, and say, “You’re late.”

“I’m not _late_ ,” Takumi huffs.

“You’re later than me,” Leo acknowledges. “Which is late.”

“Do you ever stop being a complete asshole?” Takumi asks.

“No,” Leo answers easily, and then goes right back to talking to whoever it is he’s speaking with.

And then Takumi ends up muttering to himself under his breath about prissy idiots as he slips backstage to put his bag down, get his costume to change. He says hi to people along the way, gets friendly shoves and pats on the back, and after he’s finally managed to wrestle himself into the stupid high collar and tights that someone apparently thought was a good idea for a costume he walks back into the theatre to see Kaden already there on stage, a grin on his face and a manic gleam in his eye, and _that’s_ when his day actually, finally starts for real.

-

The first couple of days of tech go a little bit like this:

“New drinking game,” Takumi whispers to Leo. “Take a sip every time Kaden says _find your light_.”

“We’re high schoolers,” Leo mutters in return, completely deadpan.

“Negligible,” Takumi says.

On stage, Hana looks like she’s approximately five seconds away from tearing down the entirety of the set—wooden backdrops and carefully constructed balcony not excepting—with her own bare hands.

“Find your light!” Kaden yells.

Takumi snickers. Leo elbows him.

They’re running cues today, making sure the lights hit each actor perfectly in every single scene, which basically involves Kaden standing in front of the stage and shouting _next cue_ over and over again while the actors scurry from one position to another and very visibly try to stop themselves from committing first degree murder. Takumi knows how taxing it can get, but since he’s in a grand total of four scenes throughout the entirety of the play he’s allowed himself the pleasure of sitting back and watching the leading actors struggle through the cues instead.

There’s one point during the balcony scene where one of the lights have to be refocused, which eventually leads to Hana and Laslow having to freeze in position for an extremely long amount of time—said position involving Hana leaning over the balcony while Laslow looks up at her with adoring eyes, which wouldn’t really be all that funny if not for the fact that Hana ends up looking like she’s contemplating the exact angle she would have to lift her foot in order to execute a precise kick at Laslow’s face the entire time.

Hana’s concentration doesn’t break at all throughout the entire process, but the moment the scene ends she turns to look directly at Takumi and fixes him with a glare so terrifying that he’s about ninety percent sure it just took ten years off his lifespan.

“I can’t decide if she likes you or hates you,” Leo says.

“You know,” Takumi says, shooting a look at him from the corner of his eye. “She _was_ the one that convinced me to apologize to you.”

Something flickers across Leo’s face, too quickly for Takumi to catch. When Leo turns to him his expression is perfectly neutral.

“Maybe I should send her a fruit basket,” he says dryly. “Or a strongly-worded note telling her it was my plan all along to make you stop talking to me.”

Takumi shoves him. Leo doesn’t even budge.

“Too bad,” Takumi says. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“What a shame,” Leo murmurs absently, but when Takumi turns to look at him he’s smiling.

Takumi bites down on his lip to stop himself from grinning back. It doesn’t quite work.

-

Once all the cues are sorted dress rehearsals begin, and _that’s_ when all hell breaks loose.

They haven’t practiced with the full set yet, so the first day of dress is mostly just a mess of actors bumping into walls and suddenly forgetting stage directions. It probably doesn’t help that Takumi feels like he’s actually suffocating inside his costume, and tights? _Tights?_ What is this, Peter Pan Live? He’s pretty sure the only reason why nobody has laughed at him about it yet is because every single other person is in the exact same boat and also looks equally terrible. Takumi tries to think about Hinata and Oboro’s reaction when they finally see him prancing around stage in that costume, delivering a monologue about fairies that’s more befitting of someone who’s just inhaled possibly life-threatening quantities of marijuana, and then promptly switches that part of his brain off.

The only person who looks even remotely comfortable in their costume is Leo, but then again, it’s Leo, who practically has disaffected unconcern down to an art. (Still doesn’t change how ridiculous he looks in it, though.)

“Please stop giggling every time you look at my costume,” Leo tells him primly. “You don’t exactly look like the epitome of fashion either.”

“I know,” Takumi says. “But you still look hilarious.”

Leo turns away, flushing, and it settles like a victory deep in Takumi’s gut.

“You’re being unprofessional,” Leo mutters.

“I think we’ve already established that, given the whole getting kicked out of rehearsals fiasco.”

Leo pinches the bridge of his nose. Takumi just beams at him.

-

And so the week drags on until it’s finally Thursday.

Final rehearsals are always rough. It used to make Takumi sentimental, but after doing this for years he finds himself mostly just exhausted now. It’s past nine by the time he finds himself stumbling out of the auditorium, a dull ache in his shoulder from all those fight scenes, back in his own regular clothes instead of the horror of a costume he still has to deal with for another two days.

 _Another two days_ , he thinks. The last high school fall play of his entire life, and it’ll be over in two days. He’s not quite sure how it makes him feel; he stands in front of the school gates, gazes at the courtyard and the field and the gray concrete buildings. After the fall play is the spring musical, and then after that come the exams and the college applications and then it’s _graduation_ , and holy shit, what the hell is he going to do with the rest of his life after he gets out of this place—

“Hey.”

Takumi turns, and Leo’s there, looking at him, his hands tucked in his pockets, his eyebrows raised, his hair falling across his forehead, tickled by the cool night breeze.

“Not getting home yet?” Leo asks. Takumi shrugs.

“I will soon,” he says. “It’s just…” He gestures helplessly at the school building in front of him. He thinks Leo understands.

“I didn’t know you were such a sap,” Leo says. Takumi glares at him.

“Not a sap.”

“The evidence seems to suggest otherwise.”

“God, you’re such a fucking asshole.”

“Yes, as you’ve told me numerous times.”

Takumi rolls his eyes.

“Shouldn’t you be getting home soon?” he asks.

Leo turns to look down the street—it’s dark, the streetlights barely illuminating the way.

“I should,” Leo says.

There’s a brief lull in the conversation. The streetlights are dim, but the profile of Leo’s face is clear.

“You know,” Takumi begins. “You live all the way on the other side of town, right?”

Leo raises an eyebrow in response.

“My house is barely five minutes away. If you want to you could—” Takumi says, and then stops. Leo’s giving him a look that’s suspiciously similar to the one he had on his face all those weeks ago when Takumi looked him in the eye and asked him to work on that project with him, all those weeks ago when they could barely speak to each other without wanting to punch each other in the face.

“You can sleep over,” Takumi finishes, the words feeling awkward in his mouth. Why is it awkward? It shouldn’t be awkward at all. Hinata and Oboro sleep over all the time. It’s not a big deal. Ryoma isn’t even going to be home, he’s away on a business trip. It’ll just be Sakura, and she knows Leo really well by now. It’s not—it’s not _weird_. It’s not. It’s not a big deal at all.

“I don’t have any of my things,” Leo says.

“You can borrow mine,” Takumi replies, and hates the jolt of nervousness in his gut at the words.

For a moment they just stand there, staring at each other. Leo’s lips are parted, as if he was about to say something and then stopped before the words could leave his mouth.

“Okay,” he says at last. “Just let me—let me call home first, alright?”

Takumi wonders. It’s probably the first time Leo’s ever said anything about his family to him; what Takumi knows he’s heard from hallway gossip: older brother, two sisters. He hasn’t heard anything about Leo’s parents. He thinks about all the times Leo’s come over to his house, interacted with this family so easily and naturally, and he realizes, not for the first time, that there’s still so much he doesn’t know about Leo.

“Hello? Camilla?”

Takumi tries to pretend he isn’t eavesdropping on Leo’s conversation on the phone, and then gives up trying to pretend at all.

“No, no, I’m fine,” Leo says, frowning. “I just wanted to ask— _no_ , Camilla, I just wanted to ask if I could—spend the night at a friend’s place— _yes.”_ Leo flushes, turns his face away from Takumi. “No, I— _Camilla_.” He sounds completely exasperated. Takumi bites down on his lip to stop himself from grinning like an idiot. “Just let Elise know, okay?” Leo continues, his voice suddenly soft. “I don’t want her to worry—yes. Thank you.” A pause. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He hangs up, glaring down at his phone as he does.

“Your sister?” Takumi asks. Leo looks up at him, sucks in a breath.

“Yes,” he answers. “That was Camilla.”

Leo shifts, puts his phone away, then straightens up, turns to Takumi.

“Well,” he says. “Shall we go?”

The moment suddenly feels heavy, pregnant with possibility.

“Sure,” Takumi says. “Let’s go.”

-

The walk back to Takumi’s house is quiet. He can hear the crunch of their feet against gravel, against autumn leaves on the sidewalk. Takumi trails behind, lets Leo take the lead, and is surprised—but probably shouldn’t be, really—that the path to his home is familiar now to Leo. He tries to count the number of times Leo’s been over, and it’s a lot. When did it stop feeling weird and start being this natural?

“Are you okay?” Leo asks, interrupting his thoughts. “You’re being strangely quiet.”

“I can be quiet sometimes too, you know,” Takumi says.

“Right,” Leo says. “When you’re not busy yelling at the nearest person, that is.”

“I don’t _yell_ —”

“Yes, and you’re actually the calmest, most gentle person in this entire country—”

“Seriously, is it just because you’re British or are you _actually_ that much of a dick?”

“That’s awfully American of you to say, Takumi.”

And then they both laugh, and it’s nice and normal and easy. Takumi turns to look at Leo, and his throat is dry. He swallows, focuses on the path in front of him, the familiar roads and side streets. There’s something in the air that’s different tonight, although Takumi can’t quite put his finger on it, can’t quite figure out _why_ anything should be different at all. It’s no different from all the times Leo’s been over to talk about homework or rehearse or just sit around playing Mario Kart. Maybe it’s the knowledge that it’s the day of show tomorrow; maybe it’s the fall chill, on its way to winter. Maybe it’s the darkness of the night that’s putting him in a strange mood. Maybe it’s the quiet that’s fallen over the town, how still it is in comparison to the middle of the day. No lawnmowers, no kids shrieking. Just the sound of leaves rustling in the wind, footsteps on the pavement, the streetlights with their strange orange glow.

When he lets himself in Sakura’s sprawled out over the couch, reading. She doesn’t look up when he walks in.

“Sakura,” he says.

“Welcome back,” she replies, still reading.

“I brought a friend.”

Sakura looks up, sees Leo quietly toeing his shoes off in the doorway, and then sits up so quickly Takumi’s surprised she doesn’t give herself whiplash right there and then.

“Oh,” she says, breathless. She turns to Takumi, opens her mouth, closes it again. _I hate you_ , she mouths, blushing furiously. Takumi just grins at her.

“I’ll just—go,” she says. She gets up, tucks her book securely under her arm, and then makes a run for it.

“Don’t trip and fall,” he calls after her. Sakura doesn’t reply, but Takumi’s pretty sure she’s going to give him hell the next day for it. Which is fine. Takumi’s looking forward to it.

“You know,” Leo says from behind him. “You shouldn’t make fun of her so much.”

“What else are little sisters good for, though?”

Leo hums noncommittally in reply, and Takumi remembers a conversation on the phone.

“Elise,” Takumi says, carefully. “Is that your little sister?”

Leo starts, obviously not expecting Takumi’s line of questioning. It takes a moment, but he recovers, nods.

“Yes,” he says. “She’s in middle school. I suppose she’s about the same age as Sakura.”

Takumi is cautious. He’s aware, acutely, of how fragile this moment is—Leo telling him about his family, tentative at best and fearful at worst. He shrugs off his jacket, motions for Leo to sit down on the couch with him.

“What’s she like?”

There’s a pause. Takumi watches Leo, can practically see the way his mind is turning over on itself, trying to figure out the words to talk about something that’s always been so intensely private.

“She’s,” he says, “cheerful. Optimistic. Almost overwhelming so. When you’re with her you can’t help but get pulled into that energy too—like you can’t help but be just as happy too.”

“She sounds amazing,” Takumi tells Leo. He tries to picture Elise in his mind’s eye, thinks of her with the same blonde hair, thinks of Leo sitting with her, smiling openly, honestly.

“She is,” Leo says, quietly.

“What about your other sister? Camilla? Is that her name?”

Leo’s lips quirk upwards into a smile.

“Yes,” he says. “Camilla.”

There’s some history there, Takumi thinks. He’s not sure if he should pry.

“Well? What’s _she_ like?”

“She’s quite a bit older than me,” Leo says. “She—sometimes she feels more like a mother than an older sister, really.”

Leo isn’t looking at Takumi as he speaks. _Mother?_ Takumi thinks. They’re getting at something here, but Takumi isn’t sure what to say, doesn’t know how much is _too_ much, doesn’t want to push Leo’s limits, but—but they’re here, and he wants to know. He’s told Leo a lot. He thinks it’s only fair that Leo does the same.

“And what about the rest of your family?” Takumi asks, and Leo actually physically _flinches_ , reacts to it like a slap across the face.

He gets up, turns towards the hallway.

“I’d like to take a shower,” Leo says. “If that’s okay.”

Takumi blinks.

“Of—of course,” he says. He stands up too, but his chest is tight, and he can’t help but feel like he just messed up something really important.

-

Leo emerges from his shower with his pale hair turned dirty blond by the water, his fringe falling into his eyes without his hairband to push it back. He’s taller than Takumi, but skinnier, so Takumi’s clothes hang loose on his shoulders, his hips. Takumi doesn’t know why the sight of it makes him feel like something’s just wormed its way into his gut.

Deep breaths.

“Don’t break anything,” Takumi tells him as he grabs a towel of his own. Leo snorts.

“I won’t,” Leo returns, and then Takumi shuts the bathroom door.

-

When Takumi gets out of the shower he finds Leo in his bedroom, sitting cross-legged on Takumi’s bed, leafing through a book. When Takumi takes a closer look he realizes it’s his copy of Romeo and Juliet. Leo’s finger hovers over the pages, pauses when it passes over one of Takumi’s annotations.

“You put a lot of effort into this, don’t you?” Leo says, not looking up.

Takumi blinks, surprised.

“I guess?” he says, moving to sit down next to Leo. “I mean—I never really thought of it as me working particularly hard or anything. I just—I did it just _because_ , you know?”

“I think that’s very admirable of you,” Leo says evenly. Takumi stares at him.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “Do you have a fever?”

“Now who’s the one being an asshole?” Leo says, scowling, finally looking up.

“Don’t just say something nice out of the blue,” Takumi returns. “You’ll give me a heart attack.”

“Okay. Sorry. Your annotations are messy and confusing.”

“That’s better.”

Leo laughs, sets the book down, stretches his legs out. Takumi looks, and then looks away.

“So,” Leo says. “Are you going to braid my hair now while we watch Mean Girls?”

“Of course.” Takumi grins. “And then you can tell me about all the cute boys you have a crush on too.”

Leo laughs, smacks Takumi on the arm with his book, and it’s nice and normal and easy.

So they talk about the play. They talk about their fellow cast members. They complain about the costumes, pick each other’s acting choices apart, laugh about how neither of them still have a complete grasp of the fight choreography, but it’s okay. It’s okay; the show is tomorrow, and it’s going to be great. They talk, and it gets late, and Takumi pulls out the futon, gets spare pillows and blankets, the actions familiar to him by now from years of sleepovers with Oboro and Hinata. He turns the lights off, gets into bed, pulls the covers up over him, and stares up at the ceiling, somehow still wide awake.

He knows how tomorrow is going to go. He’s going to be antsy all day during class. He’s going to make a dash to the theatre right after the last bell of the day. He’s going to get good luck texts from Oboro and Hinata. He’s going to see Laslow freak out backstage. Hana’s going to pretend to be annoyed about it but go ahead and help him calm down anyway. Kaden’s going to give them some stupid pep talk about how far they’ve come and how amazing it’s going to be and _this is a really special show, you guys_ , and someone’s going to end up crying at some point. Some prop is going to break five minutes before curtains, and some stagehand is going to magically pull out a replacement without even so much as batting an eyelash. It’s going to be a bundle of nerves and excitement, seniors with their final fall play, freshmen with their first stage experiences ever, and it’s going to be amazing. No matter what.

It may have started out rocky, he thinks, but they got there in the end.

He thinks of that disastrous rehearsal, thinks of Leo’s face, etched with fury; thinks of Leo in that fateful English class, quickly hiding his surprise behind deliberate disinterest. He thinks of Leo, loose and relaxed, wet hair and a slightly oversized t-shirt, sitting cross-legged on Takumi’s bed, book perched carefully on his lap.

“Leo?” he says, quietly. “Are you awake?”

Silence. Takumi shifts, thinks maybe he should just try to go to sleep.

“Yes,” Leo says, after a beat, and Takumi is suddenly wide awake.

“Do you,” Takumi asks, “ever get nervous? On stage?”

“Yes,” Leo replies.

“ _Are_ you?” Takumi says. “Now?”

A beat. Then:

“A little,” Leo admits. “I’ve never—it’s a new audience. It’s always nerve-wrecking in front of a new crowd.”

And Takumi suddenly remembers that Leo’s only been here for a few months; he’s fit so easily in Takumi’s life that he’d almost forgotten that Leo’s new here, in this town, in this school. And he’s probably scared, no matter how hard he pretends to be anything but.

“Why did you move all the way out here?” Takumi asks.

The room is silent, so quiet that he can hear his own breathing, each unsteady inhale and exhale.

“I’ve never told anyone,” Leo says at last. “Not even Niles. Not even Odin.”

Takumi’s breath catches in his throat.

“After my mother died,” Leo begins, “my father—changed.”

Takumi turns, but Leo has his back to Takumi, curled in on himself, facing the wall so Takumi can’t see his face, even when his eyes finally adjust to the dark.

“It was—it was bad. Especially for Xander, because he was the oldest. He couldn’t afford to make our father angry, you see. And Camilla tried to protect us, but Elise still got hurt, and—”

Leo sucks in a breath.

“Leo…” Takumi begins.

“That was the breaking point,” Leo continues, cutting Takumi off. “It was unspoken; Xander, Camilla and I could stand up for ourselves, but Elise had to be protected at all cost. And when our father hit her for the first time—“

Leo stops talking. Takumi doesn’t know what to say.

“Well, long story short, there was a lot of legal action involved. Xander handled most of it. It dragged on forever—custody and whatnot. Since Elise and I are still minors. And then finally when it was all over Xander found a job opening over here, and I thought, well, if fresh start is what we’re going for we might as well do it in another fucking continent, you know?”

Takumi thinks back to their first meeting, to that fight. He thinks of what Leo might’ve been going through, where he’d come from. He thinks of Leo’s expensive clothes, the same few shirts and pants recycled in different combinations. He thinks of Leo’s dirty shoes, so incongruent to how neat and tidy the rest of him is, the barely-contained worry whenever he gets home late after rehearsals. It all suddenly slots into place, and Takumi thinks, _I’m an idiot._

“I think you’re incredible,” Takumi says, completely honestly.

Leo doesn’t reply for a long time. Takumi wonders if he’s fallen asleep.

“Well,” Leo says at last. “I believe I’ve confessed enough about myself for today.”

“It’s—it’s fine,” Takumi says, the words clumsy on his tongue. That’s not what he meant to say at all—what he really meant was _I’m really happy you told me all this_ and _you can tell me anything you want, you know that right?_ He wants to say _you don’t have to keep pretending to be brave_ ; he wants to say _you’re allowed to be weak sometimes too_.

There’s so much else he wants to tell him. He just doesn’t know how to put it into words.

“In the interest of fairness,” Leo says. He turns around, shifts so that Takumi can make out his face now, hazy in the darkness of the room. “Shouldn’t it be your turn now?”

“My turn?” Takumi asks, and even though it’s dark he can still see it anyway when Leo smiles.

“You must have _some_ secret to share with me.”

“I’ve told you about my family before.”

“Surely you can think of something else.”

Takumi genuinely draws up a blank. Maybe it’s his sleep-addled brain refusing to cooperate, but he can’t think of anything at all.

“How about you ask me questions instead?” Takumi suggests. Leo snorts.

“What’s this? Twenty questions?”

“I was thinking more like three. At most.”

Leo pauses thoughtfully.

“Okay,” he says. “Do you know Oboro has a crush on you?”

“ _What_ ,” Takumi says, probably loud enough to wake Sakura up all the way on the other end of the house.

“So I take it that’s a no,” Leo says, sounding way too satisfied right now.

“Are you—you’re fucking with me, aren’t you—”

“She keeps staring at you,” Leo says. “In class.”

Takumi is silent. He feels genuinely shell-shocked right now.

“I’ve known her since forever,” Takumi says. “I don’t—I’ve never—how did I not _know_ —”

“You wouldn’t know if someone was in love with you if it was staring you right in the face,” Leo tells him.

Takumi puts his head in hands.

“What the hell do I do?”

“How would I know?”

“No more questions, _please_.”

“Just one more.”

“If you drop another bomb on me I swear to god—”

“Fine, you can ask me something else instead,” Leo says.

Takumi huffs, tries to think of something equally cutting.

“Do _you_ know Niles keeps staring at you like some kind of creep?” he asks.

“Don’t talk about him like that,” Leo replies smoothly, and Takumi is extremely disappointed that the question doesn’t even so much as draw a breath of surprise from Leo.

“Does that not bother you?” Takumi asks.

“Why would that bother me?”

“Because he’s—well, he’s—”

“Because he’s a boy?”

Takumi is painfully aware of what he sounds like right now. The mood has suddenly shifted. He swallows.

“No, that’s not what I meant—”

“It doesn’t bother me at all,” Leo says, his voice clipped, “because I’m gay.”

The words hit Takumi like a freight train. He freezes up, actually literally freezes up, his eyes very wide even in the darkness of the night.

“Oh,” he says, stupidly.

“Does _that_ bother you?” Leo asks, his voice cold, throwing Takumi’s own words back at him with added venom. “Should I leave?”

“ _No_ ,” Takumi says, and suddenly he’s thinking of Leo on the first day of rehearsals again, that cloak of indifference that he mistook for antagonism but was actually just a defense mechanism, and Takumi wants to reach out to touch him, but they’re lying on separate beds in the middle of his room, and all he can do is say, as earnestly as possible, “Of course it doesn’t bother me. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

Leo is quiet for a long time.

“Okay,” he says at last.

“Leo,” Takumi says. “It really doesn’t bother me at all. I do _musical theatre_ , of course it doesn’t bother me.”

A brief silence, and then he hears Leo laugh, softly, and he finally lets himself relax.

“Thank you,” he says. “And now we don’t have to speak of this ever again.”

“Only if you don’t want to,” Takumi says.

A pause.

“Can I ask you another question, then?” Leo ventures.

“Shoot.”

“Is there anyone you like?”

Takumi isn’t expecting that question, mostly because it’s just so expected, and right after that other revelation. It’s just—way too predictable, the ultimate sleepover question, but Leo’s watching him from across the room, smiling faintly. He thinks Leo might be teasing him. He has no idea. He’s too tired for this.

“No,” he says.

“Not at all?”

“No.”

Takumi is quiet.

“What about Hana?”

He thinks of her bright smile and her long hair, her skirts and her tiny shoes. He thinks of those few weeks where they didn’t speak to each other, thinks of his relief when she finally forgave him. He thinks of her and his brain, half-coherent with sleep, comes up with: _I’m so glad she’s my friend._

“No,” he says, honestly. “Never like that.”

“What about if you _had_ to date someone? Anyone at all in this entire school?”

“Anyone?”

“If you just had to pick one person, who would it be? Anyone at all?”

 _You_ , Takumi thinks, the thought slipping out unbidden, and then he stops breathing entirely.

_Wait._

_Wait—_

_Wait._

“Go to sleep, you jackass,” Takumi says, but his voice comes out strange. It’s like there’s something pressing down on his chest, something sharp and suffocating that’s making it hard for him to physically speak. What time is it? It must be late—there’s a show tomorrow, he has to be well rested—he doesn’t—he can’t possibly—he’s not _gay_ , this can’t—

“Fine,” Leo huffs. He turns over again, and Takumi can make out the shape of his hair falling over the pillow, the patch of skin where his shirt’s ridden up, his legs tucked against his chest, and it’s like a dam’s been broken somehow, because the rush of emotion is almost overwhelming, threatening to swallow him whole.

“Goodnight,” Leo says, his voice very quiet.

 _Anyone_ , Leo had said. _Anyone at all._

“’Night,” Takumi returns.

He presses his face into his pillow, but his mind is still racing, and his heart is still threatening to either burst out of his chest or stop beating entirely, and he’s aware, suddenly, of the inches of distance that separate their beds, their bodies.

 _Leo_ , he thinks, and then tries not to think at all.

He closes his eyes and lets sleep wash over him; when he finally falls asleep he dreams of pale hair slipping through his hands like water.


	6. day of show

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> recommended reading music: [fallingforyou](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3JJxS0gNkE) by the 1975
> 
> thanks for stickin around, folks

Takumi is not freaking out.

Takumi doesn’t _do_ freaking out. (That’s a lie.) (That’s the biggest fucking lie that’s ever been told in the entire history of mankind, and he knows it, and everybody who knows him knows it too. Takumi is two parts animosity and one part freaking out at any given moment in the day.)

Takumi is maybe freaking out. Just a little. Just a teensy bit.

Takumi is freaking out. A lot.

Holy shit, he’s freaking out.

Reason number one: Takumi isn’t straight.

He thinks maybe he’s always known this, somewhere deep down inside of him. He thinks of all the times Hinata’s gone to him with some crush on some girl and how he’s never been able to offer anything more than muted sympathy in return; how he’s never thought about any girl the same way, not Oboro, not Hana, not anyone ever, not even a simple kindergarten crush. He thinks about all the times he’s noticed boys, in locker rooms and dressing rooms and classrooms and hallways but always thought it was perfectly normal to notice boys that way, that just because he couldn’t stop looking at the junior who sat in front of him in calculus back in his sophomore year it didn’t necessarily mean it was attraction, it was just—it was _normal_ —he was just—just _looking_ —

Mostly, though, mostly he thinks of Leo—Leo, who woke up this morning in his room barely five feet away from his bed with bleary eyes and messy hair, who is now brushing his teeth in his bathroom, Leo with his stupid hair and stupid eyes and stupid smile, who is smart and talented and funny and so very, _very_ attractive, and Takumi’s heart is beating in double time in his chest, and he is totally, absolutely, completely, undoubtedly freaking out.

Reason number two: Takumi isn’t straight, and neither is Leo.

Reason number two point five: Takumi is pretty sure he has a crush on Leo.

Reason number three: Takumi has absolutely _no idea_ how to handle this information.

He sits in his bed, listening to the water run behind the closed door of his bathroom. His head is spinning; his throat is dry. He tries to focus on the things he knows for sure: school. Classes. Hinata. Oboro. Show.

Except classes are awful and Oboro apparently _likes_ him and the show also means Leo, and when Takumi invited Leo to stay the night he definitely wasn’t expecting the following morning to be one big life-changing epiphany.

The water stops running, and a moment later Leo’s pushing the door open, already primly dressed in his clothes from the day before; he’s managed to tame his hair back to its regular neatness, hairband securely in place without a single stray lock of bedhead.

“You should hurry,” he says, “or we’ll both be late for school.”

“Right,” Takumi says, his voice not even wavering at all, which, all things considered, is honestly a pretty big achievement.

Leo doesn’t even so much as blink, already stepping out of the way to gather his things as Takumi walks into the bathroom, shuts the door behind him, looks straight ahead into the mirror and says, out loud, “I’m fucked, aren’t I?”

-

They aren’t even close to being late; they arrive in school a good fifteen minutes before the first bell rings, and they wave goodbye to each other as Leo heads off to his own class while Takumi stays at his locker and pretends he isn’t hyperventilating into his textbooks.

 _I am calm,_ he thinks. _I am calm. I am so very, very calm right no—_

Then someone taps him on the shoulder, and it takes every single ounce of self-restraint in his body to stop him from jumping out of his own skin right there and then in the middle of a crowded hallway. He turns around, and of course, it’s Hinata, grinning brightly at him with his usual easy cheerfulness that makes Takumi physically heave a sigh of relief.

“Nervous?” Hinata asks.

For a second Takumi thinks he’s been caught, that Hinata somehow _knows_ —but then he remembers: first show tonight. Right. Of course.

“Hell no,” he says, which is Takumi-speak for _yes_ , and predictably Hinata just laughs, clips Takumi on the shoulder again.

“You’ll be fine,” he says, and means it, and Takumi is suddenly floored all over again by just how _nice_ his friends are to him, that they constantly accept him for all his flaws and inadequacies and continue to do so time and time again, even when he feels like there should be a limit on their patience, even when he feels like he does not deserve the kindness of these people who do so much more for him than he can ever possibly give back to them.

 _What the hell is wrong with me today,_ he thinks.

And so he goes through the motion of going to classes and answering questions and trying desperately not to fall asleep on his own face, Hinata next to him in calculus, Oboro behind him in chemistry, and of course Leo, sitting right at the front of the classroom flanked by his friends, letting Takumi stare at the back of his head and wonder how it took him this long to figure his feelings out.

The day inches by painfully slowly, but it’s a small reprieve whenever he sees fellow cast members in classes or in the hallway and they exchange a look of shared commiseration. The last class of the day is English, and when the bell goes and class is dismissed Oboro turns to him and hugs him, simply, as she’s always done every single year before a show, since they first became friends.

“Break a leg,” she says. “Not that you need it.”

For a second Takumi remembers Leo’s words from last night and feels bad. He wonders if maybe in some other universe he could’ve liked her instead, that they could’ve dated and been happy and condemned Hinata to a life of third wheeling—but then she releases him and smiles in that crooked way of hers, and he knows, suddenly, that there’s nothing he would change at all about his life at this very moment.

She steps back, and then Leo is there, tilting his head towards the hallway.

“Shall we go?” he asks.

Oboro gives him one final wave, and then disappears out the door.

“Yes,” Takumi says, and it feels like a finality.

-

They join the rest of the cast, and it feels less weird after that. It’s easy to get caught up in their stride, this bunch of odd misfits that have somehow become his friends, and it strikes him all over again just how different everyone is and yet how seamlessly they’ve managed to come together anyway, and god, why do show days always make him feel so stupidly sentimental?

And then they get to the theatre and Kaden walks in, and they sit on the stage as he makes his usual speech (breaking his record from the spring musical two years ago by using the phrase _a really special show_ a whopping total of six times), and then the cast scuttles off to get their costumes and makeup on, and Takumi suddenly finds himself thinking: _this is it._

He clutches his costume, balled up in his bands, and he thinks he might be panicking again, and this is starting to get really old really fast, he thinks. He thinks of Hinoka’s advice to him, back when he first started acting—deep breaths. In. Out. Count them. Feel the air in his nose, in his lungs. It makes him feel marginally better as remembers Hinoka’s words:

“It’s my secret,” she’d said, holding her finger to her lips. “How I pretend to be a lot less scared than I really am most of the time.”

He remembers his resentment at how easily she’d found herself fitting into her new life at college; it occurs to him that somewhere along the way, he’d forgotten that she was a lot like him once too.

“Hey.”

Someone taps his on the shoulder, and when he turns around Hana is there, already dressed in her costume, although her hair remains loose and unbraided and her makeup hasn’t been done yet. There’s an envelope in her hands, and Takumi blinks down at it.

“Is that for me?” he asks.

Hana scowls.

“No,” she says, “I’m just waving it in front of your face for fun.”

He takes it from her outstretched hands, and it’s only then that he realizes his name is written on the front in her familiar loopy handwriting.

“Oh,” he says, because he isn’t sure what else to say.

“I know I usually don’t do this,” she begins, “but I figured—it’s our senior year, and who knows who’ll get cast in the spring musical too, so…”

“So that means I’m not actually special and you’ve written one for everybody?”

Hana’s scowl deepens. For a second Takumi thinks she’s going to punch him, but she reins herself in just in time.

“God, you’re an asshole,” she mutters instead.

“One of the fundamental truths of life,” Takumi agrees.

She doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and Takumi’s starting to think that it’s an implicit dismissal; but then her expression breaks, and she laughs.

“You suck,” she says, but she’s smiling. “Read that later, okay? Not in front of me.”

“Sure,” he replies, grinning back and tucking the letter under his arm.

For a moment they just stand there, smiling at each other. Then she punches him in the arm, lightly, though it still hurts anyway. Thankfully, he doesn’t even wince.

“Break a leg,” she finally says, shooting him one last grin, before turning around and running off, presumably to look for the other cast members. Takumi watches her go, then looks down at the letter in his hands.

He really should go get changed, but. Well. No time like the present.

He flips the envelope to the back, where the flap is taped shut with a piece of washi tape. Gingerly, he peels it open, careful not to tear it, and from inside he extracts a neatly folded piece of paper. He lifts his head, glances around, but nobody’s really watching him, everyone either busy with their own makeup or rehearsing lines or otherwise in their own little groups, and so he unfolds the letter and begins to read:

 _Takumi_ ,

_First of all, I want to say that I’m currently writing this at one in the morning because I didn’t expect this whole letter-writing thing to take so long, so please don’t expect this to even be a little bit coherent. How the heck does Silas do this every single year? Anyway, not the point—the point, I guess, is thank you. For being a great friend and scene partner and occasional confidant. I don’t want to make this too long because there’s absolutely no way in hell you’re not going to be in the spring musical, and hopefully I’ll see you there too, so maybe I’ll get all sappy then. Who knows. We’ll see._

_But I also know you’ve been struggling with your own battles for a long time now, so I want to tell you that you’re one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with, and you shouldn’t have to ever doubt your self-worth or ability, because believe me, I know talent when I see it, and so does everyone else too. You’re better than this stupid high school drama program. You can do whatever you want to do, and I believe that with all of my heart._

_Break a leg tonight. And don’t you dare speak of this letter to me ever again or I’ll punch you for real. I know it hurts when I hit you. You’ve never been good at hiding it._

It ends with her signature at the bottom of the page with yesterday’s date scrawled underneath it. Takumi looks at it, and looks at it again, and then shoves it back into the envelope before sealing it back shut with the washi tape. He thinks his face might be red; it certainly feels hot enough.

He thinks he actually should get changed this time.

-

And so Takumi squeezes into his stupid costume and graciously allows Odin to attack his face with more makeup than really feels necessary, and when he spots Leo in those completely ridiculous tights he finally lets himself acknowledge the fact that maybe the lightness that bubbles up in his chest when he sees Leo in them has nothing to do with how dumb he looks and everything to do with the curve of his calves, and oh god, bad time, super bad time to be thinking about this.

They get their fifteen-minute call when the house doors open; Takumi finds himself holed up backstage with his headphones on as he’s always done before a show every single year. In almost immediate succession he gets three separate texts from Ryoma, Hinoka and Sakura all wishing him good luck, which is how Takumi knows for sure that they probably coordinated it beforehand. Still, it doesn’t at all stop him from smiling to himself a little when he scrolls through the messages, Ryoma’s stilted formality and Hinoka’s excited exclamation marks and Sakura’s little heart emojis.

He thinks of his mom and dad, and it hurts, but he thinks he’ll be okay.

He looks down at the clock on his phone. Five minutes to curtain.

He shuts his eyes, and lets the music wash over him.

-

And then the show begins, and it all becomes a bit of blur after that.

Takumi is on stage for maybe one fifth of the entire show, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling keyed up the entire time anyway. A show, Takumi thinks, is like a well-oiled machine, except instead of gears and levers and wires it’s a bunch of barely competent teenagers who probably score twice as high on the narcissism scale than the average human being collectively trying not to fuck shit up, so Takumi thinks it’s perfectly understandable just how on edge he feels the whole time.

The play starts off pretty well, or at least as well as a hastily thrown together high school production of Shakespeare can go. The audience laughs at the right places (mostly), and no one forgets any lines, and no one breaks any props, and no one starts bleeding or catches on fire by the end of the first act, so Takumi considers it to be a success, all things considered.

His own scenes go well too, and standing there on stage, he’s able to really remind himself why he does this: that feeling with the lights trained on his face, hot and almost blinding when he looks out at the audience. All eyes are on him and he doesn’t feel the least bit nervous, because really, there’s nothing in the entire world that’s more relaxing than the feeling of putting all that stress and worry and weeks and _weeks_ of rehearsals away, to shed it like a second skin and to be, in that moment, someone else entirely.

He looks out into the crowd and sees familiar faces: Oboro and Hinata sitting near the front, their faces visible from the stage lights that manage to hit the first few rows. Next to them sits a girl with long blond hair, her face shining and excited, probably around Sakura’s age, and next to her a young woman and a stern-looking man who looks weirdly familiar—it’s only when he gets off stage at the end of the scene and looks at Leo that he realizes who they just might be.

Leo’s standing in the wings, ready for his entrance, and Takumi really shouldn’t be bothering him now but—

“Hey,” he asks. “Did you invite your siblings to the show tonight?”

“No?” Leo replies, looking confused. “Why would I? It’s a weeknight, Xander and Camilla are both—”

“Well,” Takumi says. “Maybe you can try looking over at the front row, stage right.”

“What are you trying to—”

“It’s your cue,” Takumi says flippantly, and Leo swears under his breath and ducks out onto the stage. Takumi watches him go, and doesn’t even bother trying to hide the way he’s grinning almost manically to himself. He just hopes he hasn’t thrown Leo off too much, but. Well. He’s Leo, he can probably do anything.

-

The rest of the show goes well too, although the obvious highlight of the evening is when Leo returns backstage after his scene, turns to look Takumi dead in the eye, and says, “I don’t know if I should thank you or stop speaking to you for the rest of my life.”

There’s a light flush across Leo’s cheeks, visible even in the low backstage light, and it betrays just how flustered and surprised Leo must’ve been, how he must’ve been hiding it the whole time he was on stage. Takumi smiles.

“So I take it that you weren’t expecting it at all?”

Leo scowls and looks away. “It was probably Elise’s idea,” he mutters. “She loves planning all these— _surprises_.”

“You make it sound like it’s a bad thing.”

“It really, really is.”

Leo’s still scowling, but he’s also still slightly flushed, and Takumi knows that although Leo will probably never say it out loud he’s really, really happy anyway. Takumi thinks of Leo last night, his quiet voice in the dead silence of the room, the outlines of his face barely visible in the darkness, and he looks at Leo now, in a ridiculous costume and frowning like someone’s just mortally offended him and doing exactly what he loves best, and Takumi opens his mouth, feels his throat run dry.

“Leo,” he begins, and the scowl on Leo’s face softens, and Takumi swallows. His tongue feels thick in his mouth.

“I—” he continues, but at that exact moment someone from the other side of room shushes him, and he loses his nerve before he can continue.

“Sorry,” Takumi says instead. “Shouldn’t be talking backstage.” He jerks his head towards where some of the other actors are huddled together in a circle. “I should get ready for my next scene.”

Leo nods wordlessly, the frown completely gone from his face by this point. Takumi shoots him one last smile, and then scampers off before he can do something else he regrets.

-

So Takumi dies, and then Leo dies, and then Laslow dies, and then Hana dies, and then there’s a lot of fake crying, and then there’s dramatic music, and then it’s over; it’s finally, _finally_ over. For tonight at least, because there’s another show tomorrow afternoon and then a final one at night, but for now the sigh of relief that escapes every single cast and crewmember at the same time is practically palpable.

There’s the curtain call, and Takumi grins down at Oboro and Hinata from where he can see them clapping from the front row. Elise is cheering, and Camilla and Xander are beaming, and he doesn’t even have to look at Leo to know that he’s smiling too, and in that moment Takumi thinks: _this is exactly why I do this._

And then after that comes the flurry of packing up for the night and changing out of the costumes and all the _goodbyes_ and _good jobs_ and _see you tomorrows_ , and it takes a good twenty minutes before Takumi finds himself standing outside the door to the theatre, back in jeans and a sweatshirt, and he’s there to witness a tiny blonde girl with the most ridiculous pigtails he’s ever seen launch herself headfirst right at Leo, her arms wrapping around his middle so tightly that Leo makes a little _oof_ of pain—or possibly surprise, but Takumi likes to think it’s the former.

“Leo!” Elise says. “You didn’t tell me you were going to wear tights for this show!”

Over the top of her head, Leo gives Takumi his best _don’t say a word or I’m not going to hesitate to murder you in cold blood_ look, and consequently, he also doesn’t see Camilla and Xander approaching from behind him. Camilla gives Takumi a secretive little smile, putting her finger to her lips, and Takumi grins at her before stepping away graciously to give them some space.

Instead he goes to look for Oboro and Hinata, who predictably are waiting for him outside the school gates as they’ve always done after a show every year. It’s cold out tonight, and Hinata’s shivering in a scarf that was most definitely lent to him by Oboro, but when they see him they still both break out in equally bright smiles anyway.

“How was it?” Takumi asks as he jogs over to them.

Hinata shrugs. “It was okay,” he says. Oboro whacks him on the shoulder, and he winces.

“You know I’m kidding,” he mutters, and Oboro rolls her eyes at him.

“It was great, obviously,” she says instead.

“Obviously?” Takumi echoes, grinning.

“Now you’re just fishing for compliments,” Oboro says, but she’s smiling too, and Hinata laughs, and affection bubbles up in Takumi’s chest, warm and comforting and so incredibly fond.

“Thanks for coming,” Takumi says, feeling awkwardly formal, but Hinata just grins at him.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he tells him. “I mea, that _costume_ of yours…”

And so they fall back into a familiar routine, joking and bickering. They find a spot to sit down and talk, as they always have every single year after every one of Takumi’s shows, and they talk about the show, Takumi occasionally interrupting with stories from backstage, and it’s nice. The fall wind feels like it’s blowing straight through Takumi’s bones. It shakes the trees around them, leaves rustling in the breeze, and Takumi feels almost overwhelmed by a sense of peace. Complete calmness.

“So it was nice seeing Leo act for the first time,” Oboro muses, bringing up Leo for the first time tonight, and Takumi feels his breath catch in his throat.

“Yeah, well, he pulls off angry asshole really well,” Hinata says, then starts, turning to Takumi. “Wait, sorry, that wasn’t meant to be insulting—”

“It’s fine,” Takumi assures him, although he’s mostly wondering _when the hell did it become off-limits to insult Leo in front of me_. “It’s not like I don’t say that to him all the time anyway.”

“If anyone here’s an angry asshole it’s Takumi,” Oboro mutters.

It’s easy bait, and Takumi should take it, but instead he remains quiet. He thinks of a quiet, stolen moment backstage, thinks about what he might’ve said if he hadn’t been interrupted. He thinks of a hundred different moments with Leo, and then he thinks of years and years of easy friendship with Oboro and Hinata, and the words are spilling out of his mouth before he can even try to stop them.

He says, “I think I might have a crush on Leo.”

Oboro and Hinata exchange a look.

“You owe me five bucks,” Oboro says.

“Damn it,” Hinata says.

“You guys _bet_ on me?” Takumi says.

To their credit, they do at least look a little guilty.

“I guess,” Hinata says, “when you put it that way.”

“We’re sorry,” Oboro says. “It was just—”

“Kind of obvious—”

“ _Obvious_?” Takumi echoes.

“I mean,” Hinata says.

“Well,” Oboro says.

“I can’t believe this,” Takumi says. “Here I was, all nervous, trying to hype myself up for this—”

Hinata shrugs. “We know you too well, man,” he says.

Takumi sits back, still stunned.

“I guess it would be a good time to mention that I’m probably gay,” he says, finally.

There’s a beat of silence.

Then:

“Okay,” Hinata says. “That’s cool.”

“ _Cool_?” Takumi says.

“What Hinata means is it doesn’t change what we think of you,” Oboro says. She puts a hand on his shoulder, and when Takumi meets her eyes he sees something there, under the surface. It occurs to him that he doesn’t know for sure whether Leo was right when he told Takumi that Oboro liked him, and he thinks he probably never _will_ know for sure. But she’s smiling at him, warm and genuine, and Takumi loves her endlessly anyway, even if it might not be in the way that she wants him to.

“Look,” Hinata says, suddenly looking serious, more serious that Takumi’s ever seen him. “I’m not going to make this a big deal because it’s really not, okay? I’m sitting out here freezing my ass off just to talk to you, and I’ve sat through Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and a bunch of other plays I don’t even know the names of without falling asleep even once, even though I fall asleep in every single one of my English classes, and even when I have no idea what the hell is going on. So if you think I’m going to react in any other way than how I’ve always treated you, then you’re wrong, okay?”

Takumi blinks at him, at a total loss for words.

“Thank you,” he says at last, but it feels painfully inadequate for the gratitude that he feels for his friends, for everything he has in his life right now.

“Okay,” Hinata says gruffly, punching Takumi gently on the shoulder. “Now we can go back to being dumb idiots so Oboro can yell at us.”

Takumi laughs.

“We never did Hamlet, by the way,” he says.

“Are you messing with me?” Hinata asks.

“I’m really not,” Takumi assures him, and he laughs again, the sound bursting almost unbidden from his throat, as if the joy bubbling up in his chest somehow managed to escape. He’s laughing, and he can’t stop, and suddenly Oboro and Hinata are joining in too, the three of them huddling together in one big hysterical mess. Takumi isn’t sure how long it takes before they finally recover their composure, but when they do Hinata is wiping away tears from his eyes, and Oboro’s shoulders are still shaking a little, and Takumi still can’t stop smiling like some kind of demented fool.

“So,” Oboro says when she’s finally collected enough to speak. “Leo.”

“What about him,” Takumi says, suddenly defensive.

“You used to hate him,” Hinata chimes in helpfully. “Like, honest-to-god _hate_ him.”

“Well, I was—being irrational,” Takumi says. Oboro snorts.

“Understatement of the century,” she mumbles.

“Hey—” Takumi begins.

“She does have a point,” Hinata says.

“Okay, listen—”

“But now he has a _crush_ ,” Hinata continues, pitching his voice up and draping his arm across Takumi’s shoulders. “A widdle baby crush—”

“They grow up so fast,” Oboro sighs. Takumi shoots her a stricken look.

“I’m going home,” he announces.

“No you’re not,” she says.

“I am.”

“We know where you live.”

“And _that’s_ not even the least bit creepy.”

“We terrorize you in your sleep all the time,” Hinata agrees.

“Some friends,” Takumi mutters.

“Tell us,” Oboro orders. “Tell us how you and Leo began.”

“There’s nothing to tell, there’s no beginning—”

“For example, why Leo was wearing the same thing to class two days in a row—”

“I don’t know, why the hell would I know?”

“You’re a shitty liar, Takumi,” Oboro says.

“Oh!” Hinata says. “Or how about that _project_ of yours in English, was that how it started?”

“You don’t have to say the word _project_ like that—”

“So is that a yes?”

“ _No_ —well, not no, but—”

“Aw, come on, Takumi, you can tell us.”

“I really, really don’t.”

“We’re your _friends_ , Takumi.”

“No, no you’re not.”

“And after all we’ve been through,” Hinata sighs.

“Please spare me,” Takumi pleads, looking at Oboro.

“No,” she says. “We’re your friends, and so we have to tease you mercilessly about your boyfriend. It’s a given.”

“ _He’s not my boyfriend_ —”

“Not yet, you mean.”

“I don’t even know if he likes me—”

Oboro gives him a look like he’s the most painfully obtuse idiot in the history of the universe. It’s not an uncommon look coming from Oboro, but Hinata’s also giving him a similar look, which, really, is just plain unnerving.

“You guys wouldn’t know either,” Takumi says weakly.

“I’m a girl,” Oboro tells him. “Unlike you, I know everything.”

Takumi turns to Hinata, who just shrugs.

“I hate you guys,” he says at last, even though he knows they all know that the only reason he can say that is because of how obviously false that statement is.

-

They end up talking for a while longer, until it gets too late for them to stay out any longer. Takumi waves goodbye to the both of them and watches them disappear down the street before heading back to his own home. When he unlocks the front door it’s to see Sakura sprawled out on the couch, an open book lying facedown on her chest while she sleeps peacefully. Takumi shuts the door behind him, careful not to make a sound, and then quietly walks over to Sakura and shakes her awake, gently.

She blinks awake, slowly, taking a while for her eyes to focus on Takumi’s face. When it finally does she smiles, pushes herself into a sitting position. Gingerly, she picks up her book with one hand and rubs at her eyes with another.

“Hey,” she says.

“You shouldn’t have waited up,” Takumi tells her, sitting down next to her on the couch. She shifts to make space for him.

“I didn’t,” she says, even though it’s perfectly obvious that she’s lying. “I just fell asleep by accident.”

Takumi snorts. “Sure,” he says, ruffling her hair affectionately. “Sure.”

Sakura frowns, bats his hands away, and Takumi laughs.

“Sorry,” he says, and Sakura’s expression softens immediately.

“How was the show?” she asks.

So he tells her about it all over again, relates the whole play to her until she’s dozing off against his shoulder. Takumi ruffles her hair again, and this time she barely even stirs.

It’s ben a long time since they’ve done this: sat down together on their living room sofa and just— _talked_. He remembers a long time ago, back when they were much younger, back when their parents were still around, she’d fall asleep on his shoulder just like this, and he’d pick her up and carry her to her room. Their mother would worry that he’d drop Sakura, but she’d be laughing anyway, and if Ryoma and Hinoka were there they’d be laughing too.

Mom’s gone now, but Hinoka will be back for Christmas, and Ryoma’s trip will be over in a few days.

They’re both too old for this now, but Takumi picks her up anyway, gently cradles her in his arms. If she wakes up at all, she doesn’t give any sign of it, just remains still and quiet in Takumi’s arms.

-

Later, much later, after Takumi’s tucked Sakura in and unpacked his stuff and taken a long, long shower, he lies down in his bed, and he thinks.

The day comes back to him in flashes: sitting on stage with his fellow cast members, talking and laughing and joking. Hana’s loopy handwriting on a piece of paper. His phone buzzing with text messages from Hinoka and Ryoma, one right after the other. Leo, face flushed with surprise when Elise tackled him with a hug. Oboro and Hinata, heads bowed together in laughter under the harsh orange glow of a streetlamp. Sakura, smiling up at him sleepily.

He feels, suddenly, intensely and acutely grateful.

Maybe it’s because of how tired he is, but it feels like every single emotion of the past day coming to him all at once like a sledgehammer to his chest, and it leaves him almost breathless.

He’s wide awake. He doesn’t think he’s going to be falling asleep any time soon.

He gets out of bed, turns the lights back on, and his gaze is immediately drawn to the space that Leo had occupied the previous night, and it only adds to the cocktail of emotions already brewing inside of him, ready to bubble over at any given moment. It’s joy and gratitude and fear and exhilaration and a million other things all at once; it’s the electricity of a successful show still running through his veins, it’s the heaviness in his chest when he thinks of all the people who’ve supported him all this time, so steadfastly and for so long. Mostly, though, it’s Takumi knowing that he’s never been surer of himself, not for years and years now.

This is life: he’s a senior in high school, and he’s an orphan, and he’s probably gay, and he has a massive crush on one of his best friends, and he’s okay. He’s somehow absolutely, perfectly okay.

He wants to tell Oboro and Hinata and Hana and every single one of his fellow cast members how thankful he is for them. He wants to tell Sakura and Hinoka and Ryoma that he loves them, that he’s sorry for all the years he thought he hated them. He wants to tell Leo—

He wants to tell Leo.

He doesn’t know for sure how it’s going to go, but—but he wants to anyway. He feels like he’s going to burst with the knowledge of it. And maybe—maybe it isn’t that far out to think that Leo just might feel the same way too.

He wants to do—something. Pick up his phone. Call Leo. That’s a stupid idea. It’s midnight. He’ll be asleep. Will he? No, he’s probably awake too. But maybe not, since they just did a show. Maybe he passed out the moment he got home. Or maybe he’s sitting in his room thinking about the past day too. Maybe he’s thinking about that tenuous moment backstage, a split-second that felt like a live wire between the both of them.

Now that Takumi finally has the space to do it, he lets himself consider his feeling for Leo, the weight and shape of it, almost tangible between his fingers.

“I’m gay,” he says out loud, to himself, and he can hear his heartbeat in his ears, can feel the thundering of his pulse against his neck.

“I’m _gay_ ,” he says again, just because he can, and nothing happens. His room remains silent apart from his own breathing. He feels exactly the same as he did five minutes ago. He’s still Takumi, the boy who loves language and words and the theatre but falls apart at the mere mention of algebra; the boy who’s best friends with Oboro and Hinata, the boy with a dysfunctional family that he loves unconditionally anyway.

He’s Takumi, and he’s gay, and he likes Leo.

He wants to tell him.

Without even thinking about it he’s picking up a phone and typing out a tenuous text message.

 _Are you still awake?_ he types, and then hits send before he can regret it.

It barely takes five seconds before his phone chimes with a reply.

 _Yes_ , it says, simply. _What’s up?_

Takumi holds his breath.

_Do you wanna hang out before the show tomorrow?_

_Sure,_ Leo types. _Your place?_

_Yeah, sure._

_Okay. See you then._

_Goodnight,_ Takumi types.

 _Goodnight,_ Leo writes back.

Takumi goes to bed with his face mashed against his pillow. It takes a long, long time for his brain to quieten down enough for him to actually fall asleep.

-

Despite how long it took to fall asleep the night before, Takumi finds himself wide awake at eight in the morning, even though the show isn’t for another six hours. He eventually spends the morning pacing his room, trying and failing to get the wrinkles out of his costume after stuffing it haphazardly into his backpack after the show last night, rereading the script even though he’s had the entire thing memorized for the past two months, and then eventually just lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, and trying desperately not to think about what he’s going to say. Somehow he feels like _hi, I think you accidentally made me question my sexuality, does this make things awkward?_ isn’t exactly the best way to greet Leo when he shows up at his front door later.

When Leo _does_ eventually turn up Takumi almost jumps right out of his own skin when he hears the doorbell ring. _Be cool_ , he reminds himself. _Be cool_. He walks downstairs, runs his hand through his hair, takes a deep breath, plasters a smile onto his face, and then opens the door.

The first thing Leo says, squinting at Takumi’s face, is, “Are you okay? You look like you’re ill.”

“Um,” Takumi says. He wants to sink straight through the floor. “Pre-show nerves.”

Leo scoffs. “You’ll be fine,” he says flippantly. “Are you going to let me in or what?”

“Right,” Takumi says, and finally steps aside. “Right.”

Leo walks in without even the slightest trace of hesitance, and Takumi looks at the line of his profile against the familiar backdrop of the house he grew up in, and the thought of it makes his gut feel like it’s doing a somersault. He swallows, and then shuts the door behind him. When he’s turned around, Leo’s already set his things on the floor, and he’s sitting on Takumi’s couch, his posture relaxed as he leans against the cushions. Takumi sits down next to him, and it’s no different from all the times Leo’s come over before, but this time it feels different—weighted, somehow, and Takumi knows exactly why. His pulse thuds erratically against his skin; he tries to ignore it.

“So did your family like the show?” Takumi asks, smiling. Leo looks at him, then turns away again.

“It was fine,” he says, deliberately clipped. Takumi’s smile widens.

“It was really nice of them to drop by and surprise you,” he says. Leo scowls at him.

“I don’t need to be babied by them,” he mutters.

“They’re not babying you, they just wanted to do something nice for you.”

“I hate—I hate them thinking that I’m weak or that I need _comforting_ ,” Leo says, still scowling. “I don’t, I’m perfectly fine—”

“There’s nothing wrong with accepting help once in a while,” Takumi says, and the moment the words leave his mouth it occurs to him that maybe they’re meant for him as much as they are for Leo. It took him a long time to learn that. He figures maybe Leo just needs a gentle nudge in the right direction too.

They’re still friends, first and foremost. That much isn’t ever going to change.

“That’s a bit rich, coming from you,” Leo mutters, and Takumi laughs.

“I won’t even bother to deny it,” he says, holding his palms up in mock-surrender.

Leo’s gaze turns sharper abruptly, and suddenly the mood’s shifted again, and Takumi finds himself nervous all over again. _Breathe_ , he reminds himself. _Just breathe._

“You’ve changed a lot,” Leo says, finally, “since we first met.”

“Well,” Takumi says. “I had some help along the way.”

It’s way too close to the truth; Takumi’s skating an edge over here. But he does feel like he’s finally at peace with himself, after years under a constant cloud of anger. He looks at his life then and his life now, and it’s painfully clear that the dividing point between those two phases is the moment Leo walked into his life and fucked everything up without even realizing it.

There’s before Leo, and then there’s after Leo. Or rather, during Leo. He doesn’t want there to be an after. He hopes there isn’t an after.

“Leo—” Takumi begins, tongue thick in his mouth, but Leo beats him to the punch.

“Takumi,” he says. He looks at Takumi, and he looks so painfully serious that the words die in Takumi’s mouth before he can even begin to continue. “I’ve told you a lot about myself.”

Takumi has no idea where this is going.

“Yeah,” he says instead, feeling like a complete fucking fool. He tries to swallow, but his throat is dry. Leo’s expression is a mix of tender earnestness and a strange vulnerability that makes him look unbearably young all of a sudden, and Takumi aches with how much he wants him, all of him, his wittiness and arrogance and courage and cowardice, the good and the bad, all of it, every part of him that Takumi can possibly get.

“I’m afraid,” Leo continues, “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

He looks terrified, Takumi realizes. He looks just as terrified as Takumi feels right now.

“I,” Leo begins, and Takumi kisses him.

Takumi isn’t the kind of person who plans ahead. Takumi listens to his heart first and foremost. Takumi is spontaneous and impulsive at best and rash and impatient at worst.

He hadn’t considered it at all. He’d just looked at Leo, and then he’d leaned in without a second thought.

He’s never kissed anyone before.

He’s never wanted to kiss anyone like this before.

Leo’s mouth is still slightly parted, as if on the verge of saying something. He’s not saying anything now. His lips are dry. He’s barely breathing.

And then suddenly, miraculously, he’s kissing back; the knot of tension in his shoulders loosens, and he’s leaning forward, and his hand is on Takumi’s face, and it’s miraculous. It’s nothing short of miraculous.

Takumi’s heart is squeezing almost painfully in his chest, but at the same time it’s lighter than it’s ever been in his entire life. Something bubbles up in his chest, and it feels suspiciously like happiness.

Takumi pulls away, and he laughs, and it feels like last night with Oboro and Hinata again: like there’s too much happiness in his chest to be contained, like it’s leaking out through his throat in the form of uncontrollable laughter. He’s laughing, his hands on Leo’s shoulders, holding him close. Are his hands shaking or is Leo trembling? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t think he care. He’s never been happier in his life. It feels like every show he’s successfully pulled off, every curtain call and every round of rapturous applause, but better. So, so much better.

“Are you done?” Leo asks, and when Takumi looks up again his entire face is red. He’s adorable. He’s beautiful. Takumi is so far gone.

“I’m just happy,” he says, and Leo’s face softens.

“Ever the wordsmith,” he mutters.

“Was that what you were going to say?” Takumi asks.

Leo flushes again, and it’s answer enough. Takumi wants to stay here like this forever.

“We have a show to do,” Leo says, in lieu of an answer. Takumi snorts.

“The show can wait,” Takumi says, and for the first time today, Leo smiles.

Somehow, he thinks they’re going to be okay.


End file.
